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UNDER THE RIGHT CONDITIONS, IT 
IS AS NATURAL FOR A CHARACTER 
TO BECOME BEAUTIFUL AS FOR A 

FLOWER _ 

— Henry Drummond 



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Class 3 & 

Book _il: 



Copyrights 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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THOSE WHO BRING SUNSHINE TO 
THE LIVES OF OTHERS CANNOT 
KEEP IT FROM THEMSELVES 

— James M. Barrie 





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WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



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While You are A Girl 






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BY 

LILY RICE FOXCROFT 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



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COPYRIGHT, I913 
BY LUTHER H. CARY 






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THE' PLIMPTON* PRESS 
NORWOOD' MASS-U'S-A 




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CONTENTS 



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CHAPTER PAGE 

I At School i 

II Tempers and Tongues 13 

III Managing Money 25 

IV Daughters and Mothers 37 

V A Good Listener 49 

VI Visiting 59 

VII Vacation Manners 71 

VIII Self-Consciousness 83 

IX Superstitions 93 

X Imposing on Others 105 

XI Letter- Writing 117 

XII The Art of Liking People 129 

XIII Church Manners 141 

XIV Friendship . 153 

XV The Generous Heart ....... 165 

XVI All in the Day's Work 177 




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AT SCHOOL 




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HOW pretty your daughter looks 
this morning !" said the Dressmaker, 
as she stepped briskly upstairs with 
her heavy bag. Priscilla was doing 
a little volunteer dusting for me, 
before school, and as she stood on 
the porch shaking her duster, her 
fresh shirtwaist and old-rose tie, 
"with youth and spring," as the 
Dressmaker said, did make a pretty 
combination. 

"Would you be a girl again if 
you could?" I asked. 

The Dressmaker laughed her 
hearty, sensible, tolerant laugh. 
"No," she said, "I wouldn't be 
as foolish as I used to be for worlds, 
and I know I should be just as 










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4 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

foolish if I went back. Everybody 
has to learn for herself/ ' 

Usually I agree with the Dress- 
maker, who is a whole Sunshine 
Club in herself as she goes her 
helping round. But this time I 
think she is mistaken. Many things 
everybody must learn for herself, of 
course — hard, bitter, burned-in les- 
sons sometimes — but everybody can 
learn some things from the experience 
of others. Else how would the world 
grow wiser? So I keep on talking 
to Priscilla. 

If I could be a girl again — and 
know what I know now — I would 
work harder, and behave better, 
at school. 

The record we made at school fol- 
lows us longer than most young 
people suppose, and rises up to do 
us good or harm when we had al- 
most forgotten it. Priscilla's present 
teachers will be questioned about 
her, not merely when she is looking 
for her first position, but when she 
is trying to change to a better place, 












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AT SCHOOL 

five years later. A good record 
helps a long time, and a poor record 
hinders. It is all perfectly fair, 
and one of the rules of life. 

When my neighbor, Mrs. Kendall, 
consulted our High School Principal, 
the other day, about Gladys' trying 
to take the course in three years, 
he surprised her by saying, "She 
can't go out much evenings if she 
undertakes it — Emma and Jane 
went out too much evenings.' ' Emma 
and Jane, at the other end of the 
family from Gladys, are through 
college now, and would be surprised 
and indignant to know that the 
giddiness of their high-school days 
was remembered against them. But 
the Principal — a tactless, blunt man, 
we mothers think — went on to add, 
with fervor, that he should never 
forget how bad Jane's Latin Prose 
was. 

For my teachers' sake, as well as 
for my own, I would work harder, 
if I could live my school-days over 



again 



How did you enjoy it?" 








WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



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I said to Miss Jones, last week, as 
our Woman's Club was breaking 
up after a lecture that had called 
out unusual laughter and applause. 
Miss Jones is one of the most pop- 
ular teachers in town, well up in 
her subject, a splendid disciplinarian 
and yet full of fun — what the boys 
call "all right." She has perfect 
health, and the even, cheerful tem- 
per that perfect health gives — the 
last woman to take a gloomy view 
of anything. 

"To tell the truth," she answered, 
"I couldn't keep my mind on it. I 
was trying to think whether there 
was anything in the world I could 
do to make my boys and girls take 
hold of their Algebra better." 

When I reported the incident at 
supper, Priscilla could hardly believe 
it. 

"Do you mean that Miss Jones 
worries about us?" she said. "I 
never dreamed of such a thing." 

"You never dreamed, I suppose," 
said I, "that you could do anything 



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AT SCHOOL 

for Miss Jones but hang about her 
at recess, and take her flowers, and 
send her Christmas cards. What 
would really count for something 
would be to give her your coopera- 
tion. The difference in effort and 
strain between teaching idle, care- 
less pupils and teaching conscien- 
tious, painstaking ones might easily 
make a difference of years in a 
teacher's life. Of course there'll 
always be some difficult pupils. But 
you ought to make a point of being 
an easy one." 

I remember perfectly the moment 
when I first began to have a faint 
realization of what it meant to a 
teacher to have a class do well. We 
were in the midst of preparations 
for our own graduation, and full of 
our little perturbations about badges 
and bows and positions for our hands 
and feet. 

"Oh, sha'n't you be glad when it 
is all over?" we were saying to each 
other, at rehearsal. The teacher 
who was drilling us said, half under 






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8 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

her breath, "I shall be glad, too/ 5 
and we thoughtless young things 
turned on her in wonder and said, 
"Why! do you dread it, too?" 

"I suppose I dread it more than 
any of you," she answered. Talking 
it over, at home, that night, my 
father explained to me that it was 
hard for a teacher to hold her place, 
among the crowds that wanted it, 
and that to have her pupils make a 
poor appearance on graduation day 
might easily tip the scale against 
her reappointment. To us, the great 
occasion meant a little more or a lit- 
tle less of praise from doting friends. 
To her, it meant her bread-and-but- 
ter. I have never forgotten that. 

With it I always connect the 
experience of a college classmate 
of mine, who fitted herself to teach, 
and whose family greatly needed 
the help that her salary was to bring. 
She was a delicate girl, and it was 
her fate to begin in a hard room, 
with mischievous boys and giggling 
girls, and a week of it broke her 







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AT SCHOOL 9 

down. She was counted a failure, 
and could never get a footing again 
in the profession she had looked for- 
ward to, but has spent all these years 
since at uncongenial work. Now, 
of course, I do not say that the 
responsibility for that disappointed 
life rests on any single one of those 
students, but I do think it is pretty 
clear that six or eight more steady, 
reliable boys or girls in that room 
might have saved the day. If I 
were a girl again, I would try to be 
among my teacher's "stand-bys," 
and no fear of being called a "pet" 
or a "prissy" should prevent me. 
I would try, out of ordinary, decent 
kindness of heart, and sense of fair 
play, whether I liked that particular 
teacher or not. 

Fathers and mothers care more 
than the boys and girls realize about 
their record at school. The whole 
load of the day seems lightened 
when there is a good card to be 
passed about the table at night and 
the seventy per cents of last month 



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io WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



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have worked up to eighties. It is 
the "last straw'' to a tired man if 
he hears that a "note" has been 
sent home, and a parent must go 
to talk with the principal, or an 
effort must be made to see that the 
pupil gives more attention to her 
home-lessons. If I were a girl again, 
I'd make those "efforts" myself, 
and save my father and mother the 
anxiety. "Keeping Gladys to her 
study-hours is the hardest work I 
have to do," says Mrs. Kendall. It 
is work Mrs. Kendall never ought 
to have to do. She has work enough 
of her own, and a large part of it 
is done for Gladys. If I were in 
Gladys' place, I would try to keep 
up my end. I would carry my school 
work steadily and bravely, as my 
father carried his business and my 
mother her household cares, and 
I'd realize that they had as much 
right to be ashamed of a daughter 
who was lazy at school as I should 
have to be ashamed of a shiftless 
mother or a loafing father. 



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AT SCHOOL 

If I were in school again, I would 
bring the highest motive of all to 
bear on my work — I would try to 
do it, as Milton said, "ever as in 
my great Taskmaster's eye." A 
teacher once told me of her astonish- 
ment at learning that a certain girl 
in her room had become a church- 
member some months before. 

"I couldn't believe," she said, 
"that anyone who professed to be 
a Christian could be so troublesome 
at school." No doubt the girl would 
have been pained and perhaps resent- 
ful at the criticism, but she had 
certainly given occasion for it. Prob- 
ably, as she took her new pledges, 
she thought of her responsibilities 
toward friends of her own age. 
But she had not once thought of her 
teachers as among those whom her 
influence might affect. 





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ii 



TEMPERS AND TONGUES 





TEMPERS AND TONGUES 

IF I could begin over again, I would 
learn to manage my tongue better. 
I confess this out of a full heart, for 
with girlhood thirty years away and 
my own girls looking on and listen- 
ing, Pm well aware that I still say 
many things that I ought not. "I 
told you so," in one or another of 
its exasperating forms, seems always 
trembling on the tip of my tongue. 
"I thought it looked like rain," "I 
was afraid those sweet-peas weren't 
planted deep enough," " I knew Helen 
wouldn't care for that book," "I 
felt sure you wouldn't like that hat 
after you got it trimmed" — oh, 
dozens of such things! I think I 
do usually keep them back, but it 



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16 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



is more of a struggle than it would 
have been if I had set about it earlier. 
Mother, maybe, will be forgiven 
for an "I told you so," now and then. 
But from one girl to another they 
are very hard to bear. They almost 
always go with that self-satisfied, 
complacent temper that makes a 
girl boastful — another undesirable 
and unpopular trait. Gladys Ken- 
dall has it highly developed, and 
Priscilla — who is not a very patient 
sufferer — comes home almost every 
day in a state of irritation after the 
walk up from school. If Priscilla 
has allowed herself to express en- 
thusiasm over a ball game, Gladys 
has been to so many that she is really 
tired of them. We take our western 
cousins for a harbor trip, and Gladys 
enquires whether we didn't find the 
crowd on the boat very "common." 
We spend half a hot spring day in the 
stores, looking for the shade of mili- 
tary blue that Pris covets at the 
modest price her allowance permits, 
and when the suit appears for the 





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TEMPERS AND TONGUES 

first time, Gladys remarks that she 
thought of that color but her cousin 
from New York said it wasn't being 
worn. If Priscilla, fresh from a visit 
to her favorite aunt, incautiously 
launches forth into a description of 
the pretty new house, Gladys' uncle 
has just built one much larger. And 
so it goes. 

Belittling others is in the same 
line. The girl who takes the credit 
of her own good marks to herself 
ought not to insinuate that those of 
another girl are due to help at home. 
But she is sometimes mean enough 
to. Or a girl sings well, and an 
envious critic points out that she 
isn't taking the full course, and has 
plenty of time for music. A girl 
dresses becomingly, and it is ex- 
plained that anybody could dress 
well who had as much to spend, 
whereas women who have lived long 
enough to know will promptly testify 
that the worst taste is often found 
with the most money. This petty 
spirit that grudges praise to others is 




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18 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

more common, I must think, among 
girls than boys. In fact, boys often 
comment on it, among themselves, 
as "a queer thing about girls/' 

There is a type of girl that says 
disagreeable things with a real pride 
in them, calling herself "frank," or 
"outspoken," or announcing that 
she believes in saying what she 
thinks. Of course there is really 
no more point in pouring out any- 
thing that happens to be in your 
mind, any time you happen to open 
your lips, than there would be in 
fetching from the pantry whatever 
was standing on the nearest shelf, 
if you wanted to make lemonade 
on the piazza after tennis — cold 
potatoes, maybe, and German mus- 
tard and marmalade. One is sup- 
posed to use some selection in the 
ingredients for one's talk. 

These outspoken people give a 
great deal of pain. You have taken 
part in the school play, and are 
delightfully exhilarated as your 
friends crowd about you with their 





'(ZF^^^^ 




TEMPERS AND TONGUES 19 

congratulations ; then comes the can- 
did girl and tells you she is so glad 
you got through it so well — your 
voice trembled so all through the 
first act that she was afraid you 
were going to break down. 

"Couldn't you get him to give 
you eye-glasses?' ' asks your frank 
friend, after youVe exhausted the 
oculist's patience with your en- 
treaties, "you're the image of your 
grandmother in those specs." 

'You know I never did like Rob, 
if he is your brother," an outspoken 
acquaintance said to Priscilla, the 
other day. Candor, it seemed, could 
not much further go. 

But "Evil is wrought from want 
of thought," says the poet, "As well 
as from want of heart." The over- 
bearing and ill-natured people are 
not the only ones who do harm. The 
thoughtless people do almost more. 
At least they total more, because 
there are more of them. They pass 
on, lightly, gossip that affects others' 
happiness in a way they never in- 



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20 WHILE YOU ARE 

tended at all. Off goes the gun — 
they didn't know it was loaded! 

A new family moved into our 
neighborhood last winter. The chil- 
dren were bright and attractive; 
they were liked at school, and soon 
had a pleasant group of friends. One 
day Priscilla came home pensive, 
with news that Gladys had met a 
girl who knew the Johnsons where 
they used to live, and said they 
went with a queer set, and weren't 
at all the sort of people she should 
have supposed Gladys would want 
to be seen with much. I advised 
Priscilla not to pass the tale along, 
and to try to take the Johnson girls 
at the estimate we had formed of 
them ourselves, which I had a good 
deal of confidence in by that time. 
But Gladys gave the story a generous 
circulation herself, and the popu- 
larity of the Johnsons was decidedly 
on the wane. Later we learned that 
the story was partly true — the 
mother had had a long sickness, and 
the children had been left too much 



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TEMPERS AND TONGUES 21 

to themselves and had been less 
careful in their choice of friends and 
fun than they would have been under 
other circumstances. It was just 
to get away from those associations 
that the family had moved — since 
one suburb was as convenient as 
another to Mr. Johnson's business — 
and it did seem hard that they should 
be followed by exaggerated and un- 
just reports of them. 

Almost worse was the experience 
that Mary Day had, only the dear 
girl fortunately doesn't know it. 
Mary Day is one of our Dorothy's 
summer- vacation friends; the girls 
are really very fond of each other, 
but they both hate writing letters, 
and they trust to chance for news of 
each other in the winter. About 
Christmas, we were all shocked to 
learn, from a common acquaintance, 
that poor Mary had a fatal disease, 
was aware of it, kept up the most 
wonderful courage, but would hardly 
live to another summer. The story 
was so circumstantially told that 



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22 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

we could not doubt it. Dorothy 
did not know what to do — she 
thought of writing, but what to say? 
She thought of sending flowers. But 
before she had made up her mind, 
she ran across another of the sum- 
mer group, and was warned by No. 
2 that No. i was always a frightful 
fibber! We were slightly cheered 
by that, but it was two months be- 
fore we learned, from some one who 
knew all the facts, that Mary was 
then entirely well. She had been a 
little out of health, and there had 
been some unfavorable symptoms, 
but they had all disappeared. The 
anxiety we had felt didn't so much 
matter. But for Mary herself — 
if the report had reached her, ij 
Dorothy had written, as she came 
so near doing, the shock to her, at 
a time when everything was not 
quite right and she knew it, might 
easily have made her much worse. 
Indeed, it might have made her as 
sick as we were told she was. 
It is said of the brilliant woman 







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TEMPERS AND TONGUES 23 

who founded Mt. Holyoke College 
that her rule was never to do any- 
thing which might do harm, unless 
she felt sure that more harm might 
come from her not doing it. For 
"do" read "say," and you have a 
first-rate rule for speech. But it is 
a hard one to follow. The impulse 
to share a piece of news seems almost 
irresistible. Each one of us wants 
to tell at least one other, "in confi- 
dence." And then that one person 
whom we have told in confidence, 
finds the desire to tell just as strong 
as we found it, and so one more is 
told, and another link is added to 
the chain. What is really needed 
is a non-conductor to break the 
current. 



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MANAGING MONEY 

MOST young people, nowadays, 
have a regular sum given them for 
their small expenses, for "pocket- 
money"; many have allowances that 
include their clothes; now and then 
one hears of a college girl whose 
parents entrust to her the entire 
sum that is to cover her tuition, 
board, laundry bills, traveling ex- 
penses and the rest; very rare in- 
deed is the girl who must go to her 
father or mother for every nickel 
or quarter she chances to want. 
There has been a great change in 
this respect within the last forty or 
fifty years — partly because money 
is circulating more freely in the 
community, but principally because 
parents have become impressed with 




28 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



the need that their children should 
learn early to handle money, and 
also with the pleasure that handling 
it gives them. 

Sometimes I wonder whether this 
experiment that so many households 
are making, on a larger or smaller 
scale, is succeeding as we hoped it 
would. The young people are hav- 
ing the pleasure, sure enough. But 
are they learning the lesson? Is the 
systematic habit of the parents met 
by a corresponding punctiliousness 
on the part of the boys and girls? 
The father is careful to have the 
fixed sum ready at the beginning 
of the month. Is the daughter 
equally careful not to overdraw to- 
ward the end? If she is not, then 
the whole arrangement is one-sided, 
and unfair, and as different as possi- 
ble from what real life will be when 
she has to meet it. She is not learn- 
ing to be businesslike, but unbusi- 
nesslike, and is probably worse off, 
as to practical fitness for later years, 
than if she had kept up her childish 






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MANAGING MONEY 

habit of running to papa when she 
wanted a penny. That, at least, 
she knew was childish, and she meant 
to outgrow it sometime. 

Mrs. Gates laments to me that 
Mildred never can get a suit out of 
her allowance, though they think 
it a liberal one. Gloves, shoes, hats 
and waists she seems equal to, but 
a suit upsets all her calculations. I 
suspect the truth is that she doesn't 
really begin the calculations till the 
suit is almost in sight. Of course 
she ought to be saving for it for two 
or three months. Instead of that, 
she spends carelessly for a lot of 
little trifles in the "between season" 
when she should scarcely spend at 
all, and comes square up to the suit 
with nothing on hand. Heads of 
families know that the secret of 
good management is in making the 
light months store up for the heavy 
ones. Of course the Gateses can't 
see Mildred sweltering in her winter 
suit in June, and the money is "ad- 
vanced." But an employer, five 










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30 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

years hence, won't do that for Mil- 
dred. Her husband, probably, will 
try to do it, but it will perplex and 
harass him as the breadwinner for 
a household ought not to be harassed. 
A successful business-woman, writ- 
ing in one of our popular magazines, 
speaks sternly on this point. "For 
fourteen years," she says, "I have 
worked among what might be termed 
average American men, decent, clean- 
cut, ambitious, home-loving chaps. 
I have watched callow clerks attain 
responsible positions and families of 
their own. I have seen a few senior 
workers strike a big idea or grasp 
an unusual opportunity, and branch 
out on independent lines. I have 
seen more of them walk the tread- 
mill of monotonous routine work, 
uncomplainingly, year in and year 
out. And in two instances I have 
seen them suddenly fling themselves 
from the treadmill and plunge over 
the brink into disgrace and oblivion. 
Those who succeeded credited their 
wives with the full share of their 






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MANAGING MONEY 

success. Those who walk the tread- 
mill do not talk. In the other two 
instances, all of us saw the white but 
relentless hand of the wife pushing 
the husband closer, closer to the 
abyss/ 9 

The smaller allowance for pocket- 
money only, which most girls have, 
still gives a chance for prudence and 
planning. There are the birthdays 
and Christmases to look ahead for, 
and the up-to-date girl will have her 
little hoard ready when the time for 
spending comes, and will not be 
begging — or even borrowing — of 
papa the money to buy his present. 
Graduation expenses seem pretty 
formidable to most families, and the 
girl who can surprise her mother with 
a little contribution of her own for 
shoes or sash will be touched to find 
how keenly it is appreciated. 

An account-book — next to a con- 
science — is the best possible check 
on careless spending. The model 
account-book, of course, is balanced 
regularly, at the end of the month 




YOU ARE 



GIRL 



or week or day. Priscilla, like most 
beginners, finds difficulty in balan- 
cing, but we encourage her to keep 
on with the book. It is good for 
her to know where part of her money 
has gone, even if she can't account 
for it all. She admits that it sur- 
prises her to see how many little 
things she has bought that she didn't 
really need, or even care for, simply 
because they caught her eye. Her 
Aunt Adelaide, who combines pru- 
dence and generosity to the admira- 
tion of the whole family, advises 
her to make it an inflexible rule, 
when she goes shopping, never to 
buy anything that she hadn't thought 
of before she left home. 

"If you'd needed it badly, you 
would have thought of it," she argues. 
And she tells Priscilla that what she 
has spent in twenty years for things 
she "happened to see" wouldn't 
amount to five dollars — except, of 
course, when she was traveling, and 
picking up odd trifles to bring home 
was part of the trip. 








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MANAGING MONEY 



33 



Aunt Adelaide detests "must 
haves." Last winter Priscilla felt 
she "must have" some real angora 
mittens, because "all the girls" were 
having them. (The number proved 
to be four when Rob called for the 
count.) This spring she "must have" 
silk stockings for the same reason. 

"You don't find out what you 
'must have/" says Aunt Adelaide, 
"by looking at other people. You 
find out by looking into your own 
pocket-book. The 'must' is right 
there — only, more likely, it's a 
'must not.' 99 

In America, as Aunt Adelaide says, 
girls in moderate circumstances, and 
poor girls as well, are brought into 
closer contact with girls who are 
really rich than they are in any 
other country. We call this demo- 
cratic mingling a fine thing. But it 
won't be a fine thing if it leads the 
poorer girl to feel that she must 
strain every nerve to keep up with 
the richer one, and make not only 
herself but her whole family miser- 







GIRL 






a 



able by the effort. It won't be a fine 
thing unless the poorer girl can have 
independence and spirit enough to 
go quietly on according to the stand- 
ard set by her own purse. A really 
true and deep friendship will survive 
in spite of differences. The slighter, 
superficial intimacies may as well 
be left to languish. 

After all, it is not because Pris- 
cilla's "must haves" tempt her to 
discontent and extravagance that 
I am most afraid of them. It is 
because they show such a failure to 
appreciate what the genuine neces- 
sities of life — the true " must haves " 
— really are. Priscilla has never 
known what it was to be without 
comfortable clothes or sufficient food. 
I fancy there are girls even in her 
own class at school who would be 
more vigorous if they could be more 
generously fed. I am sure there are 
girls who would be in better health 
now if they had worn heavier suits 
last winter. How petty and trivial, 
to any of those girls, would seem 







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MANAGING MONEY 

Priscilla's solicitude about angoras 
and fancy hose! 

"Having food and raiment," said 
St. Paul, "let us be therewith con- 
tent." I want Priscilla to learn 
that lesson early. And I want her 
to feel a responsibility for sharing 
even the small sums at her disposal 
now, with those who have less. I 
want her to be a generous giver. If 
she does not begin now, regularly 
and conscientiously, when will it 
be easier? As she grows older, she 
will handle more money, but she 
will have to make it cover more 
expenses. Unless she can save and 
give now, I am afraid she will never 
be able to. 






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DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 






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DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 

IF I could be back at home again 
with my dear mother, I would be 
a great deal more careful about little 
things — things that seemed little 
then, but seem so large now, when 
my chance is gone. 

Mother's work-basket — I remem- 
ber so well how she liked to have it 
left, with the needles all straight in 
the clumsy needle-book that Sister 
Adelaide made for her when she first 
began to sew, fine needles on one of 
its flannel pages and coarse on the 
other, and each spool with the end 
of its thread firmly fastened into its 
crotch. I can just hear Mother's 
gentle sigh as she would say, "My 
work-basket doesn't look very tidy 




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40 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

today," after one of us had de- 
scended upon it like a young whirl- 
wind. It always seemed to me a 
personal peculiarity of Mother's, 
harmless and rather amusing, but 
not to be taken at all seriously. But 
now that I am the owner of the 
family work-basket myself, I see 
things differently. When Rob rushes 
in from ball-practise to have a 
trousers-button sewed on, and I 
have to calm his impatience while 
I hunt through two boxes instead 
of one because Priscilla can never 
observe the distinction between but- 
tons and hooks-and-eyes, I see that 
our untidiness was more than a 
sentimental grief to Mother — it was 
a real, practical inconvenience. 

It is odd how history repeats it- 
self, even in domestic life. Our 
little bedrooms were on the third 
floor — Adelaide's and mine — and 
Mother had the habit of laying on 
the stairs things of ours that she 
found round, always with the hope 
that we would carry them up when 





DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 41 

we went. She used to say, some- 
times, "Girls, I don't see how you 
can go up so often without taking 
up those things." But we could. 
Now, in my own house, the third 
floor is Priscilla's domain and Rob's, 
and day after day the stairs are 
adorned with books, letters, shoes, 
bath-robes and collars from the 
laundry — a motley and ridiculous 
assemblage, if we hadn't become 
hardened to it. But now and 
then some outsider is unexpectedly 
brought up on to the second floor, 
and I can see that my apolo- 
gies don't really excuse me to her, 
nor prevent her carrying away the 
feeling that I am not a nice house- 
keeper. 

The mothers get the blame — 
that is what the girls don't realize. 
If they did, they would take more 
pains, I am sure. More pains about 
their own manners, for example. 
Priscilla came home from the mis- 
sionary tea, the other day, greatly 
surprised because a new neighbor, 







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YOU ARE A GIRL 



whom none of us had met before, 
was such a charming woman. 

'Why should you be so sur- 
prised?" I said. "Papa told us 
Mr. Curtis seemed very pleasant." 

Then it came out that Sally Curtis 
was a noisy, showy girl — "really 
almost cheap," Priscilla said — and 
Pris had taken for granted her 
mother "couldn't be much." After 
seeing the mother, it became quite 
plain that Sally was what she was 
in spite of her mother, not because 
of her. On acquaintance Sally will 
very likely prove to be one of those 
"good-hearted" girls whom time will 
temper and refine. But meanwhile, 
other people besides Priscilla will be 
judging her mother by her. 

Mothers are so busy and so hur- 
ried, and small hindrances count 
so much — I am sure the girls don't 
realize that either. Mother does 
not have to connect with a train or 
a school-bell, and so it is assumed 
that she alone of all the family has 
plenty of time. But she has to 



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DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 

crowd as much work into her day 
as any of them do, and to be obliged 
to lose time needlessly is as exasper- 
ating to her as it is to the others. 

"I don't seem to be able to keep 
a pencil on my desk," my mother 
used to say plaintively. It comes 
back to me now, when I hurry down 
to the door to sign for a package, 
and the expressman has worn the 
point off his, and there is none on 
the telephone stand as there ought 
to be, and I toil heavily upstairs to 
find none on my writing-table, and 
remember that I saw Priscilla fly 
in, light as a bird on her young feet, 
and snatch up something as she 
started for school — my pencil with- 
out a doubt. 

But Priscilla is a dear child, and 
saves me steps enough in other ways, 
and I ought not to complain of her. 
She has the nicest little habit of 
tidying up at odd minutes — it rests 
her, she says, from studying. She 
has a perfect genius for setting to 
rights, and to come into a room that 














44 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

I thought must wait over till another 
day, and find it all spick and span, 
is a delightful surprise. Willing help 
gives mothers such exquisite pleas- 
ure, and grudging help is so trying. 

"I'd rather do a thing myself a 
dozen times over than ask GIa!dys 
to do it," poor Mrs. Kendall com- 
plained to me, the other day. "She 
never seems to have any time for 
anything I want." 

If I were young again, I am sure 
I would carry umbrellas more ami- 
ably, and I think I would w r ear 
rubbers with less fuss! Gladys would 
be very indignant if any one told her 
so, but all her mother's friends believe 
that worry over her was at the bot- 
tom of Mrs. Kendall's nervous break- 
down, last year. Gladys is very 
self-willed, and opposing her is 
strenuous work, and over-taxing for 
a delicate woman. She would wear 
pumps all winter; she would put on 
a cotton frock the very first mild 
day; she would go skating before 
the ice was pronounced safe; she 










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DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 45 



would take the canoe out when it 
looked like a squall — she kept her 
mother in a state of apprehension 
from one end of the year to the other. 
Some mothers would have thrown it 
off more lightly than Mrs. Kendall 
did, of course. Gladys used to speak 
in a superior way about "mother's 
worrying," as if it were a weakness 
which she was thankful she didn't 
share. But at least Mrs. Kendall 
worried out of affection. Gladys 
went her own headstrong way out 
of sheer selfishness. 

I am not much of a dreamer, and 
I seldom remember my dreams. But 
there is one dream that I have 
dreamed over and over again — 
thirty times I think I must have 
dreamed it, in the years since my 
mother died. I dream that she 
comes back to us, dear and loving 
as she used to be, and we are all 
together at home, and everything 
begins again. Then, all at once, 
we are going somewhere together, 
and Mother has nothing nice to 







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46 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



wear — always it is Mother — - and 
we search and search, and all her 
clothes are shabby — and we girls 
have plenty, all fresh and new — 
and we are so sorry and ashamed — 
and I wake up. 

I cannot truly say that I think 
there is any special reason why such 
a distressing dream should be sent 
to me. I do not think Adelaide and 
I were more selfish and grasping 
than most girls. But the dream 
has made me think that perhaps 
many girls are more selfish and 
grasping than they realize. 

In rich families, of course, where 
there is enough for everyone, there 
is never any question about the 
mother's being as well dressed as the 
daughters — indeed, it is perfectly 
well understood that the mother's 
gowns and furs and jewels will be 
more costly than would be appro- 
priate for the daughters. But with 
families in moderate circumstances, 
where it is not so simple for the 
father to provide new outfits all 





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DAUGHTERS AND MOTHERS 4 7 

round as the seasons change, I sus- 
pect it is quite often the mother who 
is the last to be supplied, who pre- 
tends that it would be too cool for 
her to put on a spring suit now if she 
had it, who says that the hats all 
seem so ugly, she can't make up her 
mind to buy one yet. And quite 
likely, instead of seeing through their 
mother's unselfish little wiles, the 
girls take her at her word, and per- 
haps feel a bit disturbed because she 
cares so little about looking up- 
to-date, and resolve that they will 
avoid that error, when they get to 
be middle-aged. 

Really, the girls haven't the slight- 
est idea how much the mothers care. 
They care a great deal more than the 
girls do, if the truth were but known. 
Hidden away in the farthest corner 
of every mother's heart is oh, such 
a longing to have her children proud 
of her, such a fear that she may not 
please them, may not come up to 
their standard! She feels it espe- 
cially when they begin to go away 






m 








WHILE YOU ARE 



GIRL 



— if ft is no further than the High 
School — and make different friends 
from those they have played with 
all their lives, and bring them home. 
If I were a girl again, I would praise 
my mother more, and save the nice 
things my friends said about her to 
tell her. 



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A GOOD LISTENER 



A GOOD talker may be more ad- 
mired, but a good listener is more 
loved. That is what really counts, 
after all. 

Sometimes the two talents are 
combined — listening and talking. 
Then you have a very popular per- 
son, and a very useful one. Pris- 
cilla's Cousin Edmund, who is one 
of the liveliest boys that ever came 
out of college, is an extremely charm- 
ing listener, and one day some one 
told him so. " Well," he said, laugh- 
ingly, "it would be a pity if a fellow 
as fond of talking as I am, didn't 
know that other people liked a 
chance to talk too!" 

"A chance to talk too" — that is 



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WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

what a great many people like, and 
what some are actually pining for. 
Priscilla has just been put on the 
Visiting Committee of our Endeavor 
Society, and she made great prepara- 
tions for her first round of calls. She 
took flowers with her, and two or 
three books to read aloud from, and 
she had in store quite an assortment 
of local gossip to impart to her " Shut- 
ins/' She came home amused and 
a little chagrined. Things had turned 
out differently from her expectations. 

"Why! they didn't care at all 
about hearing me talk," she said; 
"they wanted to talk themselves." 

Of course they did — poor, for- 
lorn beings, with everybody in their 
families too busy to listen or too 
bored to pretend an interest! Pris 
had spent an hour with one old 
gentleman, looking at the boxes and 
checker-boards he makes to amuse 
himself — they aren't quite perfect 
enough to sell — and hearing how 
he picked up the odd pieces of wood 
that he uses for them. She had had 



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GOOD LISTENER 

a very good time, and had been 
urged to come again, and I could 
well believe that the invitation had 
been a sincere one. 

The grandfathers and grand- 
mothers in our homes would often 
welcome a good listener. Many of 
them are very lonely because, in 
breaking up the old homes and com- 
ing to live with the married sons 
and daughters, they have left behind 
their whole group of friends and 
acquaintances. That is not so hard 
to do when one is young and makes 
new friends easily, but it is very hard 
indeed when one is old. When Mr. 
Gates' mother died, and his father 
sold the Iowa farm and came back 
east to spend the rest of his life, we 
all felt very sorry for the poor old 
man. We knew that Mr. Gates, 
busy in the city all day, would have 
little time to devote to him, and Mrs. 
Gates seemed to have her hands full 
already of responsibilities. We im- 
agined he would find some pleasure 
with the smaller children, as gr 











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GIRL 

papas often do; but no one thought 
of Mildred as likely to count for 
much. But it was amazing how 
they took to each other, 

We don't know, to this day, 
whether it began as a duty on Mil- 
dred's part — if it was a duty, she 
took it up so gracefully that it seemed 
like a pleasure. We used to see 
them walking out together, in the 
late afternoon, Mildred pointing out 
things, and old Mr. Gates giving 
an alert attention, and evidently 
contributing opinions of his own. 
They gardened together, and the 
Gates' forlorn flower-beds began to 
blossom. Gradually, Mildred intro- 
duced her friends to him, always with 
such a pretty pride — "I want you 
to meet my grandfather from the 
west" — and it became known 
among the young people that the 
old gentleman could tell first-rate 
stories of pioneer days. That, of 
course, was Mildred's special good 
fortune — not all grandfathers have 
the knack of making themselves 




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A GOOD LISTENER 



55 






agreeable company for young peo- 
ple. But any grandfather would 
be happier for such companionship 
and appreciation as Mildred gave. 
Lately, Priscilla says, they have 
begun making a book of family 
genealogy together, and Mildred is 
writing down some of the incidents 
that her grandfather remembers. 
They are going over the old pieces 
of family furniture, and putting 
tags on the backs of the book-cases 
and pictures, to tell how old they 
are and what hands they have passed 
through; and their tags may really 
be prized, fifty years from now. 

But it is not only for others' sake 
that I would practise the fine art 
of listening, if I could be a girl again 
— I would do it for my own sake. 
Listening to stories, told or sung, is 
one of the oldest ways of learning 
and preserving history, as the boys 
and girls will remember who took 
the trip to Washington, in their 
spring vacation, and saw in the en- 
trance pavilion of the Congressional 













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WHILE YOU ARE 

Library, that fascinating group of 
panels, beginning with "The Cairn" 
and ending with "The Printing 
Press," which the artist has named 
"The Evolution of the Book." 
Now that the book has finally been 
evolved, we have at hand more 
serviceable and accurate informa- 
tion than that Oriental story-teller 
could give to that eager group seated 
on the sand. But the spoken word 
still has an interest all its own. To 
listen to one whose memory goes 
back, not only beyond the bicycle 
and the street-car and the electric- 
light and the telegraph, but into the 
days of stage-coaches and candles 
and spills and quill pens and daguer- 
reotypes and flintlock guns, makes 
the past more real than any book 
can make it. 

"Can you remember the first 
steam-cars?" Priscilla asked Mil- 
dred's grandfather. "No," he an- 
swered, "but I can remember the 
first train from Worcester to Spring- 
field. I remember an old neigh- 












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bor of ours saying: 'They say, 
"Breakfast in Boston and supper 
in Albany," but / dorit believe it. 999 

If I were a girl — or a boy either 
— I would make a systematic effort 
to hear speakers of real distinction. 
I have often heard my father express 
keen regret that he did not go to 
hear Daniel Webster, in his boy- 
hood, when the great statesman 
spoke, not so many miles from his 
home. Even more deeply would 
one mourn having missed an op- 
portunity to hear Abraham Lincoln. 
Cheap and easy transportation makes 
it possible to hear more notable 
speaking than was within the reach 
of ordinary people, a generation ago. 
The religious activities of the day 
are producing many speakers of 
high grade, and conventions and 
reduced rates are making it possible 
for our young people to hear oratory 
of the best sort. Such privileges 
are certainly worth far more than 
the effort they cost. We had a 
chance, in his centenary year, to 




notice the pleasure with which peo- 
ple who were taken to hear Dickens 
lecture in their early childhood, recall 
the event. Experiences like these, 
as Browning says, stand out in one's 
memory like an eagle feather found 
in crossing blank miles of moor. 





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VI 



VISITING 

r RISCILLA has been having a 
visitor. It was not a convenient 
time, for both her father and I were 
unusually busy, and we dreaded the 
interruption and disturbance which 
even the easiest visitor makes. Pris 
was not insistent at all, and would 
have given up the plan in perfect 
good temper, which of course made 
us more disposed to let her carry it 
out. She met Frances Goodwin at 
the beach, last summer, and when 
she heard that she was coming on 
for the Convention, she thought it 
would be such fun to have her stay 
on afterward for a visit. 

We were pleased with Fan before 
we saw her, from the note she wrote 







62 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

accepting Priscilla's invitation. It 
came by return mail, which is always 
a boon to a hostess. Girls — and 
their mothers too, for that matter 
— quite too often put off answering 
till the last minute, which is very 
exasperating if one had wanted to 
make any other use of one's guest 
room, besides seeming unappreci- 
ative. Sometimes, if they're not 
coming, they don't write at all, or 
not till the date is wholly gone by. 

But Frances wrote promptly, 
thanking not only Priscilla, but me, 
for the invitation, and spoke of look- 
ing forward to seeing all of us — 
those trifles which do show that a 
girl has been "well brought up." 
She was explicit about her train, so 
that we knew just when to meet 
her; and preferred to walk from the 
station, though Pris suggested the 
depot-carriage. She had that capa- 
ble, efficient way about everything. 
It was refreshing, for we have had 
young people staying with us who 
never seemed to make the right 



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connections and were always getting 
carried by, or leaving the street-cars 
at the wrong corner, and bothering 
others endlessly by their mistakes. 
Accidents, of course, one allows for, 
but carelessness is a different thing. 
Frances was as prompt all through 
her visit as she had been at the begin- 
ning. She was always down in time 
for breakfast — a model to Pris- 
cilla, it must be confessed. Even 
when they had been out the night 
before, and I had suggested that 
they might sleep late — as I did, 
once or twice — Fan was always 
smilingly sure that they should wake 
up anyway and might as well get up 
and could take a nap later, if they 
needed it. And it certainly made 
things run a great deal more 
smoothly in the house, to be able 
to get the breakfast dishes out of 
the way at the usual time. It was 
the same when we were going any- 
where — she was always the first 
to be ready, and we had none of 
that impatient standing about, wait- 








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64 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

ing for the guest whom it is not 
quite courteous to hurry. 

The way she fitted in was astonish- 
ing. One would have thought she 
had been studying our tastes for 
years. I was so tried when Priscilla 
had Mabel Newcomb here, last sum- 
mer, by her want of tact. Priscilla's 
father always goes straight for the 
hammock, when he comes home, 
and the few minutes' rest that he 
gets in it, before supper, seems just 
what he needs to give him an appetite 
after the hot, hard day. Whoever 
happens to be in it always rises, as 
a matter of course, as soon as he 
comes in sight. We have several 
big chairs on the piazza, and the 
steps make good seats, too, with 
cushions — there is plenty of room 
for everybody. But I suppose it 
never occurred to Mabel that she 
wasn't entitled to the hammock at 
one hour of the day as well as another. 
My husband would drag himself up 
the steps, all heated and worn, and 
look about in vague discomfort — 

















it was days before he realized what 
was different from usual, though I 
knew, the first time it happened — 
sit a little while in one of the chairs, 
and then wander indoors for his 
chance to "stretch out." I thought 
it would surely occur to Mabel, 
sometime, to say "Wouldn't you 
like the hammock?" But it didn't. 

After supper, it was the same way 
with the easy chair in the living 
room. Mabel always appropriated 
it in the daytime, and she kept right 
on in the evening. If it had been a 
question only of the young people, 
of course the guest would have been 
entitled to the best, but older people 
take precedence, even in their own 
homes. Poor Mabel! she would 
have been dreadfully hurt if she had 
known how glad I was to see her go. 

She didn't go when we expected, 
either. She stayed on and on, wait- 
ing till some other friends were ready 
to have her come to them. That 
was partly Priscilla's fault, for she 
assured Mabel it would be all right, 






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66 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



but Mabel ought not to have hinted 
for Priscilla's invitation. Nothing 
but an invitation from me ought to 
have kept her. Girls are absurdly 
careless about such matters. Look- 
ing at things from their own stand- 
point, it never seems to occur to 
them that a family could have any 
other friends whom they might want 
to see. 

I remember how amused her father 
and I were years ago, when Dorothy 
went with a party of college friends 
to spend a week at the shore, in a 
cottage belonging to the father of 
one of the girls. She was asked 
definitely for the week, but she left 
home so confident that she should 
stay longer if she liked it, that we 
didn't look for her at all when Satur- 
day came. Great was our surprise, 
late in the evening, when she ap- 
peared, bringing with her a girl 
whose home was so far away that 
she couldn't reach it that night. A 
letter from the father had come in 
the morning mail, taking for granted 














VISITING 

that they were breaking up that 
day, and telling them to be sure to 
leave things in good order, because 
he was bringing down a party of his 
friends for the week-end. His daugh- 
ter had been dreadfully chagrined, 
and all the girls felt highly indignant, 
but my husband and I thought it an 
excellent joke, and one that pointed 
a moral for Dorothy. 

"Don't make them twice glad," 
my grandmother used to say, when 
any of us set off for a visit. But 
there was no question of being glad 
when Frances went. Everyone of 
us had grown fond of her, even Rob. 
Mabel made a fatal blunder with 
him the first night she came. Rob 
was sitting perfectly rigid with shy- 
ness, and making the fewest possible 
motions for fear he should spill or 
drop something, and Mabel leaned 
across the table and addressed him 
directly. "Don't you live by eat- 
ing?" she said. She meant to be 
friendly, of course, but Rob felt 
himself made fun of, and he never 



: :l 







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68 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

forgave her. But Fan seemed to 
know by instinct when to let him 
alone, and somehow, at odd moments, 
found their common interests, and 
finally won his entire confidence 
and admiration by climbing out onto 
the roof of the L with him to see his 
" wireless" outfit. 

She had that tact about every- 
thing. Everything we had or did 
seemed extra-pleasant, because she 
appreciated it so much. It was 
always the pleasant things that she 
noticed and commented on. Some 
visitors, you know, always give you 
advice. If you're making sand- 
wiches, they tell you a new way. 
But Frances praised our sand- 
wiches. 

She fell in so simply with our Sun- 
day habits. I always dread Sunday 
a little, when the children have 
visitors. We enjoy the day very 
much, in our own way, and it is dis- 
turbing to have a visitor propose 
things that we are not in the habit 
of doing. I don't know now whether 










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we are "stricter" than Frances' peo- 
ple at home, or not. She didn't 
make any comment. She simply 
took up our routine as if it was 
exactly what suited her best, went 
to the services with us, and busied 
herself with our quiet pleasures be- 
tweentimes. Priscilla happened to 
hear, after Frances had gone, that 
some girls from another part of the 
town, who had met her at the Con- 
vention, had suggested coming up 
on Sunday afternoon to call on her, 
and Fan had asked them if they 
would mind coming Monday instead, 
because she didn't know what our 
plans for Sunday might be. 

I was particularly glad that she 
said so many nice things about our 
church. A visitor's criticism often 
counts for a good deal, and if Frances 
had thought the sermon dull, or the 
singing poor, or the Sunday-school 
superintendent queer, Priscilla would 
have remembered it a long time. 
But Fan liked them all, in that 
cheerful, happy way she had. I 




doubt very much whether she real- 
ized what she was doing, but it was 
actually true that every good in- 
fluence was strengthened by her 
visit. It seemed wonderful that one 
week could mean so much. 





VII 
VACATION MANNERS 








VACATION MANNERS 



P RISCILLA and I are just back 
from the country. I always think 
it specially beautiful in its first sum- 
mer freshness, with the young foliage 
drooping over streams that run full 
after the spring rains; and the 
Mountain View proved as comfort- 
able and homelike a boarding-place 
as could have been found. But our 
first week was completely spoiled 
by Gladys. 

I ought to have known better than 
to take Gladys with us, of course. 
But Mrs. Kendall has so many cares, 
and is so delicate, that when she 
told me she didn't feel equal to 
taking Gladys away this summer, — 
and yet she couldn't bear to have 



j£ M 



74 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 












the child lose her little trip, — I very 
foolishly offered to let her go with 
us. I didn't do it without consulting 
Priscilla — I was not so inconsid- 
erate as that! I've known girls to 
detest each other for life, simply 
because the older people in their 
families had insisted on throwing 
them together, regardless of their 
lack of congeniality. Oh, no, I con- 
sulted Priscilla! She felt as I did 
that it would be pleasant to help 
Mrs. Kendall, and we both thought 
that, with all outdoors to scatter in, 
we needn't find Gladys much in the 
way. But we did have discretion 
enough to ask her only for the first 
week, and reserved the second for 
ourselves. We needed it — to re- 
cover in. 

Really, I shouldn't have believed 
there were so many ways for a girl 
to make trouble. To begin with, 
Gladys found fault with everything. 
She complained of the food, which 
was plain, but as good as we were 
paying for. She made interminable 




W^ £k< 




VACATION MANNERS 



75 



igj 






comparisons, in her high-pitched, 
slangy style, between the Mountain 
View and some New York hotel 
where she had once stayed for a 
day or two with a rich uncle and 
aunt. She was peremptory with the 
waitress, and sent back steak because 
it was too well done, and eggs because 
they were too rare, with a manner 
which I suppose she thought marked 
her as an experienced traveler, but 
which I considered extremely pert 
and ill-bred. She came in very late 
to her meals, which was not the 
habit in a simple boarding-house like 
ours, and then lingered as long over 
her courses as if she had sat down 
at a reasonable time. If I had been 
going to have her with me all sum- 
mer, I should have tried to drop a 
gentle hint, but just for one week, it 
didn't seem worth while. But one 
week was enough to make her un- 
popular with all the "help." 

I was distressed at the way she 
used to leave her room. It was the 
chambermaid's business to put it 





76 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



in order, of course. But there are 
some things one ought not to expect 
a chambermaid to do, unless one is 
prepared to give her a very special 
"tip" for having served one as lady's- 
maid as well. Hanging up one's 
clothes, for example, and straighten- 
ing out one's toilet articles, and 
wringing out one's wash-cloth from 
the sudsy water in the bowl. Every- 
thing of that personal character 
ought to be personally disposed of, 
if possible. 

There is a kind of neatness possible 
to a room, before breakfast, that is 
as unmistakable and almost as at- 
tractive, as the neatness of later in 
the day. But to leave one's bed 
with the very shape of the sleeper 
in it, as a cat might, is to make the 
task of the person who puts it to 
rights needlessly unpleasant. 

Gladys never paid any attention 
to these little niceties. She annoyed 
me by running about the halls in her 
kimono more freely than I liked. To 
be sure, the kimono was a pretty one, 





<o^ 








VACATION MANNERS 

and very becoming, and one might 
argue that it covered her as decor- 
ously as a lingerie waist. But the 
kimono is a Iounging-robe, and is 
associated with the toilet, and a 
really refined woman remembers the 
fact, and does not allow herself to 
be seen in it except by her family, 
unless in one of those emergencies 
that excuse everything. 

Gladys' clothes were a constant 
exasperation to me. I don't expect 
to dictate to my young people, but 
I do think it good manners for a 
girl to ask advice now and then, 
especially away from home. But 
Gladys always felt perfectly equal 
to deciding for herself. She did 
not even consult with Priscilla, which 
seemed to me really queer. When 
girls are together in that way, I 
think it looks well for them to dress, 
not alike exactly, but on the same 
principle. At home, we think the 
Johnson girls manage so nicely about 
that. If one goes to church in a mus- 
lin, the other does. If one dresses 






78 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

'informally" for a party, so does 
the other. To see two girls start 
out together, from the same house, 
one in silk and the other in gingham, 
makes you feel as if both were not 
equally well provided for, or one 
were trying to outshine the other, 
or, at least, as if they couldn't agree. 
Gladys and Priscilla certainly gave 
that unpleasant impression, all the 
time we were at the Mountain View! 
If Priscilla happened to ask her what 
she meant to wear, Gladys would 
always say, "Oh, I haven't made up 
my mind yet ! " I really think it was 
because she was set on wearing her 
more elaborate things, and knew I 
shouldn't advise it. Both the girls 
had had their first "evening" dresses, 
in the spring, for a wedding, and they 
had brought them in their trunks, 
but I soon saw there wasn't likely 
to be any chance for them to wear 
them. Imagine my feelings when 
Gladys, the last night she was there, 
came down to supper — it wasn't 
dinner at the Mountain View — in 












VACATION MANNERS 



79 






m 









hers. She came in even later than 
usual. The young people had been 
off for a long ride in the mountain 
wagon, and most of them only ran 
upstairs for a fresh blouse. It was 
one of the charms of the Mountain 
View that we needed so little time 
to dress, and could stay outdoors 
till the very last minute. When 
Gladys' pink chiffon appeared in the 
doorway, just as the rest were get- 
ting up, it made a decided sensation. 
I suppose she took the little stir for 
applause. But it wasn't. 

But clothes were not my worst 
trial. Gladys' natural selfishness 
showed itself in a dozen little ways 
that I should never have noticed, 
I suppose, if I hadn't felt responsible 
for her and felt that our party was 
being judged by her. She always 
took more than her share of things. 
She and her partner would keep the 
tennis-court for a half-day together, 
with a group of people on the piazza 
growing more impatient and indig- 
nant every minute. 




n 



m 




80 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



The partner was a problem, him- 
self — one of our boarders, but not 
one whom I happened to know. It 
didn't occur to Gladys to introduce 
him to me, but after she had been 
constantly with him for two half- 
days, I asked her to, and she most 
ungraciously did. He seemed a well- 
mannered boy, quite at his ease, and 
I rather think introductions to 
chaperones were more in hi§ line 
than in Gladys'. I fancy it often 
happens so — a boy is thrown with 
a girl whose ways are more free-and- 
easy than those he is used to, and 
he shows no surprise and attempts 
no corrections — how could he? — 
but he has a lower opinion of the 
girl. I don't believe this boy's sis- 
ter would have devoted hours at a 
time to a stranger as Gladys did to 
him, nor sat with a stranger on a 
boarding-house piazza till the very 
last of all the guests was waiting 
to go upstairs. That last guest 
was I, of course. I hovered about, 
making myself odious in Gladys' 









VACATION MANNERS 



eyes, no doubt. But I couldn't do 
less. 

I remember distinctly the first 
time I learned, myself, that it was 
not always considered a triumph to 
be seen monopolizing the society of 
one young man. I was not quite 
grown up, and was a looker-on at 
a party given for an older cousin, 
and from my quiet corner viewed 
with the intensest admiration a tall, 
striking girl who actually kept the 
most attractive man in the room 
hanging about her the whole even- 
ing. When the party broke up, and 
we all sat around to "talk it over," 
I was amazed to hear the object of 
my envy characterized as unlady- 
like. But I quite concur in the 
adjective now. To make one's self 
conspicuous in any way is ill-bred, 
and to make one's self conspicuous 
in that way is most ill-bred of all. 




I 




















VIII 
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 





H 



) i 



IF I were a girl again, I would cer- 
tainly try to think less about myself. 
My first Harvard Class Day was 
spoiled for me by my self-conscious- 
ness. Class Days, I suppose, are 
the very grandest occasions a young 
girlcan look forward to, and I was 
fresh from reading that fascinating 
description of Class Day at Harvard 
that Mr. Howells gives in "April 
Hopes." 

It was not one of the students who 
invited me, which made my antici- 
pations a little less keen, of course. 
But a professor's wife, — an old 
friend of my mother's — had asked 
me to spend two or three days with 
her, on purpose to show me the 
festivities. She had taken pains to 






n 




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86 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

get invitations to several of the 
spreads for us, and she did every- 
thing she could to make it pleasant 
for me, and I ought to have enjoyed 
it. I had never been in Cambridge 
before, and the University buildings, 
the lawns, the decorations, the lights, 
the Glee Club, the Tree exercises, 
the lovely dresses and the pretty 
girls were worth coming miles to see, 
if only as a beautiful spectacle. If 
I could have realized, at the begin- 
ning, that I was to play just a spec- 
tator's part, I might have enjoyed 
it thoroughly. 

But I had come with an absurd 
idea that I should be quite important 
myself, and when I saw that my dress 
was among the plainest, and that 
even the young men whom my hostess 
introduced were in a hurry to get 
back to their own friends, and had 
no time at all to spare for me, I fell 
into the sulks, and it was a most 
morose and unattractive young per- 
son, I am sure, whom kind Mrs. Lake 
dragged about with her through the 



ypS^L^yL 








n\ 





SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 



87 






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last part of the day. Of course it 
was all an old story to her, and she 
had gone just for my sake, which 
must have made my behavior par- 
ticularly exasperating to her. 

After it was too late, I was heartily 
ashamed of myself, and tried to hope 
that Mrs. Lake might not have 
noticed. I am ashamed still, though 
no doubt she forgot it all long ago. 
But I have learned since that my 
conduct — foolish as it was — was 
not so very unusual, and that there 
are a good many other girls just as 
vain and silly. Only last year, I 
took my niece to a Class Day, and 
it seemed to me I could see Alice 
going through exactly the same suc- 
cession of moods — complacency, ex- 
pectation, and disappointment, fol- 
lowed by unreasonable resentment 
toward me, her well-meaning and 
helpless chaperone. 

But I have had experiences of just 
the opposite kind. I have taken 
girls to parties and picnics where 
they did not know many people and 






y 





88 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

did not have much "attention," and 
they had a good time in spite of the 
drawbacks. 

It depends mostly on themselves, 
after all — the "good time." Clothes 
don't make nearly so much difference 
as many girls think. There is a 
discontented, sullen expression, that 
comes over the face of a girl who 
wants more attention than she is 
getting — a perfectly unmistakable 
expression, that can make the pret- 
tiest dress look ugly. But a bright, 
cheerful face attracts at once. 

"You lose a great deal of pleasure, 
my dear," said an old uncle of mine, 
when I was a girl, "by being so 
afraid of making yourself ridiculous." 
He was quite right. I never could 
join heartily in Hallowe'en tricks, 
because I felt so awkward when the 
laugh was on me; nor play games, 
unless I was sure of playing them 
well. It was not because I was 
afraid of hurting myself if I fell, but 
because I was afraid of being laughed 
at, that I never succeeded in learn- 








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w 









SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

ing to skate. It was just so with 
swimming — the same miserable self- 
consciousness stood in my way. 

When we were children, and came 
home from a day at the beach with 
Father, and sat down to sort over 
the pebbles we had collected, we were 
always disappointed because so few 
of them proved pretty enough to be 
worth keeping. Father used to laugh 
and say "Uncommonly pretty stones 
arent very common." We always 
thought it was one of his jokes. But 
gradually we discovered there was a 
sermon in it. Uncommonly attract- 
ive girls arent very common. If 
you think they are, if you want to 
be one yourself, the chances are 
against you. It is the same idea that 
the current slang puts more bluntly 
— " You are not the only pebble on 
the beach." 

But why should you want to be? 
Why should you covet more than your 
share of popularity, or praise? You 
would be ashamed to confess your- 
self greedy about anything else. 



GIRL 



n 



Appreciation, admiration, affection 
— they are among the most desirable 
possessions in the world, but do you 
really want more of them than you 
are fairly entitled to? Do you want 
to take her share away from some- 
body else? 

Call it what you please — self- 
consciousness, or vanity, or plain 
selfishness — the quality is always 
a blemish in character. Lovers of 
"The Idylls of the King" and "In 
Memoriam " always shrink from hear- 
ing the stories that are told of Tenny- 
son's sensitiveness to criticism and 
his extraordinary fondness for praise. 
We feel instinctively that we cannot 
admire the poet so whole-heartedly 
if the stories are true, and we wel- 
come any evidence that proves them 
exaggerated. In the case of a public 
man, it is almost fatal to his reputa- 
tion to have it believed that egotism 
is the key-note of his nature, or that, 
as the ugly phrase puts it, "he has 
got the swelled head." The prac- 
tical judgment of everyday people 



I 







SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 



9i 



agrees that the Apostle Paul was 
right when he urged every man "not 
to think of himself more highly than 
he ought to think, but to think 
soberly. " 

"Handsome is that handsome 
does," the proverb used to say. I 
never quite believed it. But I have 
not doubted it for a moment since I 
saw the "girls" again, when I went 
back to college for my twenty-fifth re- 
union. We spoke of it over and over 
again, among ourselves. Girls whom 
we had not thought of as pretty at 
all, in college days, had come back 
with faces shining with earnestness 
and courage, and the joy of unselfish 
achievement or endurance, and we 
were astonished to find them beauti- 
ful. It was a strange object-lesson 
before us there, as we wandered 
about in the June sunshine beside 
the lake, and called back one 
memory after another. "Not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister" 
is the college motto. Our friends 
who had followed most closely in 



lii! 






Si 



«<\ 



WHILE YOU ARE 



the spirit of the pledge had proved 
the truth of those other words: "He 
that findeth his life shall lose it, but 
he that Ioseth his life for my sake 
shall find it." 




s 

1 









IX 
SUPERSTITIONS 





SUPERSTITIONS 

THE Club met with Priscilla last 
week. It was Mildred Gates' birth- 
day, though not many of the girls 
knew it, and Pris thought it would be 
fun to surprise her with a birthday 
cake, and candles. So we gathered 
the girls into the dining-room, to get 
the full benefit of the celebration, 
instead of passing things in the parlor 
as we usually do, and brought in 
chairs. Everybody was very jolly, 
till one of the Johnsons happened 
to notice that there were thirteen at 
the table. Then the pleasure was 
spoiled for her. After we had talked 
and joked about it for a minute or 
two, she asked me if I would excuse 
her if she took her chair away from 



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the table, and she moved it over into 
the bay-window. There she seemed 
to feel perfectly safe, and ate her 
ice-cream and cake with as much 
zest as anybody. On the whole, I 
never saw a silly thing more simply 
and sensibly done. But I did think 
it a very silly thing. As if the Fate 
that was angered at seeing thirteen 
people grouped around a table would 
be propitiated by having one move 
three feet away! 

I asked Priscilla, afterward, 
whether she thought any of the 
other girls had the same feeling. 
She thought there were two or 
three who were relieved when the 
unlucky number was reduced to 
twelve, though she didn't believe 
any of them cared enough to have 
made themselves so conspicuous. 
Then I remembered having the same 
thing happen years ago, at a Thanks- 
giving party, where we fixed it by 
moving back one of the babies' high- 
chairs. So I couldn't really blame 
these young people so much. Still, 








<~7V 



^r^> ; 



SUPERSTITIONS 

for girls that prided themselves on 
being up-to-date! 

But, when you once begin to be 
on the lookout for them, you're 
surprised to find how many old- 
fashioned superstitions young people 
still have. We used to notice that 
when Dorothy was bringing her 
college friends home on visits. Pris- 
cilla had just attained a room of her 
own, and her greatest pride was a 
glorious bunch of peacock-feathers 
that Aunt Adelaide had bestowed on 
her when she broke up house-keep- 
ing. Of course she always wanted 
the big girls to come in and see her 
room, and they were always as dear 
and sweet as big girls could be, and 
made a leisurely circuit of her walls, 
and admired everything. But it 
always ended in the same way, with 
their advising her to take down the 
peacock-feathers for fear of bad 
luck. 

At first, I think the child was made 
a little uneasy, but she grew vexed, 
and then indignant and obstinate, 





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£§ 



i 




WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



and ended by keeping them there 
long after she would have been glad 
to replace them with something 
newer — four or five years in all, 
I should think. Very bright years 
they were too, with far more than 
our share of family happiness as 
compared with many of our friends, 
But when Priscilla had scarlet-fever 
— a light case — we heard that 
Gladys Kendall attributed it to the 
peacock- feathers. 

Of course many of the old super- 
stitions are just harmless fancies, 
and rank with fairy-stories and Santa 
Claus. I don't suppose it hurts 
anyone to hunt for four-leaved 
clovers, or to try to count seven 
stars on seven consecutive nights, 
or to wish when they see a load 
of hay coming. If people like to 
say "Bread-and-butter/ 5 to prevent 
breaking friendship, when a group 
divides to go round a tree in their 
path, surely no one is foolish enough 
to think it anything but fun. But 
it does sometimes seem to me as if 



i 



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<E^2C 








SUPERSTITIONS 



99 





















the people who tapped on wood 
actually did it seriously. And I 
know that some sensible persons 
feel depressed when they spill the 
salt, or walk under a ladder, or see 
the moon over the wrong shoulder, 
for they have told me that they do. 

If one enjoys wearing a garnet 
any better for calling it her "birth- 
stone," I don't object, though I 
wonder how many of the girls who 
do it could tell how and where the 
tradition originated. But when a 
grown woman explains to me, as one 
did not long ago, that her "birth- 
number" is four, and that she "vi- 
brates" to that number, and that 
it corresponds to green in the spec- 
trum, and that the more green she 
can have about her — in wall-paper, 
clothes, china, and what-not — the 
more fortunate her life will be, I 
certainly do think she is filling up 
her mind with a good deal of worth- 
less trash. 

To tell one's fortune from apple- 
seeds or daisy-petals is a pleasant 






ioo WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



enough piece of childish play, but 
fortune-telling in real earnest — or 
in half-earnest — is bad business, 
and I do not like to have anything 
to do with it, in any form, under any 
pretext. 

Mrs. Day dates the long, tedious 
illness that Mary had, last winter, 
from her having her fortune told at 
a charity fair. She had been get- 
ting a little over-tired, and they had 
sent her off for a visit, and the fair 
was one of the diversions. There 
was a fascinating fortune-teller — 
only they called her a palmist — 
with wonderful dark eyes, and real 
Oriental silks and gauzes — none of 
your cheap, home-made costumes — 
and all the girls were raving about 
her. When she looked at Mary's 
hand, the first thing she said was 
that a long, serious sickness was indi- 
cated, but that Mary would "over- 
come." There was more, of course, 
and the total was cheering, as it 
always is at fairs; but poor Mary 
couldn't think of anything but the 



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SUPERSTITIONS 

sickness, not even the " overcoming.' ' 
If she had been at home, and her 
family had known about it, probably 
they could have laughed her out of 
it at once. But she didn't tell any- 
one — just got bluer and bluer, and 
worried and worried, all by herself, 
and couldn't sleep, and finally lost 
her appetite and gave up entirely. 
The doctor never could find any 
cause to account for so much Iist- 
Iessness and languor, and it wasn't 
till months after that the truth 
came out — Mary had really been 
"scared sick." 

Sometimes this fortune-telling 
turns into deliberate swindling. 
Only this morning our city papers 
described the arrest of a fortune- 
teller and her husband, on the charge 
of getting money under false pre- 
tenses. Ignorant girls would come 
to the fortune-teller, and she would 
predict wealth for them, and would 
offer to direct them to a good invest- 
ment. The husband posed as the 
secretary of a successful stock-corn- 





o> 







: 



pi/ar 

102 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

pany, and the credulous girls would 
entrust their savings to him, some- 
times sums of several hundred dol- 
lars. Of course they never saw 
them again. 

Perhaps you think that such 
swindles can only thrive in cities, 
where there are always plenty of 
ignorant, gullible people? But I 
am not so sure of that. I have 
known women who seemed intelli- 
gent enough in other ways, and 
were certainly able to carry on a 
good business and make a good 
living, who would consult a " clair- 
voyant' ' or a "trance-medium," if 
they lost a purse or a ring, or had a 
"run of bad luck." 

But we live in a world of marvels, 
and many people have a vague idea 
that there is "something in" these 
strange things, and that by experi- 
menting they may find it out. They 
forget that successful experiments 
must be made by those trained to 
them, by experts. In unskilled hands, 
they are only dangerous. I would as 













ic^ 



SUPERSTITIONS 103 

soon see Priscilla and Rob trying to 
experiment with dynamite or the 
malaria-mosquito, by themselves, 
as with thought-transference, and 
crystal-gazing, mind-reading, men- 
tal telepathy, and all the rest. Even 
parlor games of that sort make me 
uneasy. 

But it is not chiefly because of 
harm that may come to their health 
or their pocket-books that I fear 
any least taint of superstition in the 
minds of my children. It is because 
I know it must, sooner or later, in- 
fluence their thought of God. And 
our thought of God is the most 
important thought we have, and 
reacts on all the others. 

It is God's world that we are living 
in, and its laws are God's laws. Try 
fitting any of these crude, grotesque 
notions we have been naming into 
one of the familiar descriptions from 
the Bible: "Goc?, that made the world 
and all things that are therein, seeing 
that He is Lord of heaven and earth, 
dwelleth not in temples made with 




m 



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104 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

hands, neither is worshipped with 
mens hands, as though He needed any- 
thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and 
breath, and all things," and sendeth 
trouble to them that will hang feathers 
on their walls, but stayeth His hand 
jor them that tap on wood. — Does it 
sound blasphemous? Of course it 
does! It is blasphemous. A pagan 
might speak so of his god. A Chris- 
tian's thoughts should be moving 
on a higher level. 





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X 
IMPOSING ON OTHERS 



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X 









IMPOSING ON OTHERS 

1 DO wish girls would be more care- 
ful about imposing on others. 

I speak with feeling, because Pris- 
cilla is so often imposed on. I can't 
blame her. Indeed, I seldom blame 
the person who is imposed on. About 
small matters, it is usually better 
not to make a fuss. "Standing up 
for one's rights" is greatly overdone, 
I think. But when Priscilla came 
home from school, yesterday, with 
the left sleeve of her new coat simply 
soaked with rain, because she had 
had to share her umbrella with 
Gladys, I was thoroughly vexed — 
with Gladys. The coat will have 
to be pressed, and I doubt if it will 
ever look as well again. Gladys 



; 




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never bothers with an umbrella unless 
it is actually raining when she starts. 
"Oh, I can go under with someone 
else," she says, and sets gaily forth. 
"Does your mother make you carry 
an umbrella?" she said to Priscilla, 
calmly superior, the very morning 
of the shower. 

Of course none of us object to 
sharing in emergencies. But this 
deliberate planning to make your 
friends do the daily carrying back 
and forth for you is just plain selfish- 
ness. And it is simple mathematics 
that one umbrella will not cover two 
people. Notice, sometime when you 
are walking behind, and compare 
the distance across two pairs of 
shoulders, plus the necessary dis- 
tance between, with the diameter 
of the umbrella. 

But we have had girls come for 
regular visits without umbrellas or 
raincoats. Mabel Newcomb did 
that, explaining cheerfully that she 
knew Priscilla wouldn't mind lend- 
ing. Poor Pris had just bought a 




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IMPOSING ON OTHERS 

new raincoat, and was extremely 
proud of it, and she looked dejected 
enough walking out in the old one, 
which the Salvation Army wagon 
had forgotten to take away, beside 
Mabel in the first glory of the new. 
Of course Mabel suggested wearing 
the old one herself, but she didn't 
urge it. I don't really suppose Pris 
could have let her, if she had. 

Borrowing, even if it begins in 
frank good nature on both sides, is 
likely to be carried too far. You 
never can tell what things may 
happen to be specially precious, and 
though your friend is perfectly will- 
ing to lend you her Egyptian scarf, 
and even offers her party bag, she 
may hate to see you go off with her 
cheap little fan, because she has 
reasons of her own for prizing it. I 
have lost many things of value in my 
twenty-five years' housekeeping — 
broken cut-glass and silver gone to 
the garbage-bucket — but I never 
mourned for any of them as I did for 
a little fifty-cent handkerchief which 












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was part of my trousseau, and which 
a careless niece helped herself to 
and never brought back. 

At college, Dorothy actually lost 
a hat, not a " knock-about/ ' but a 
real "dress hat/' It didn't turn 
up with her other winter things when 
she came home for the long vacation, 
and she dimly remembered that 
someone had borrowed it. That 
was all — we never saw it again. 
How a girl could pack up and carry 
home, by accident, a hat trimmed 
with vivid poppy-red velvet and 
plumes, none of the grown people 
in the family could understand, but 
Dorothy always stoutly maintained 
that in the give-and-take of college 
life it was not at all strange. 

Priscilla gets regularly "done" 
out of all her small possessions at 
school, Rob says. It certainly does 
seem as if the child could never call 
a pencil her own for more than a 
day. Her father brings home an 
extra quality from the office for her, 
knowing how much she likes the 




4 < ^^^^^^^^^^ > 



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0* 




IMPOSING ON OTHERS in 

kind he uses, and she sets out, Mon- 
days, with the finest of fine points 
on three or four. But, apparently, 
the girls for several seats round de- 
pend on her store. She admits she 
is the only one that keeps a pen- 
knife on her desk, and I think it 
must be the same with rulers and 
rubbers, and I know her compasses 
are constantly in demand, for I hear 
her complain that she couldn't do 
her geometry in school because some- 
one else had them. 

But what annoys me the most is 
her being asked to pass round her 
Latin translation, or her problems. 
Pris studies hard, and often stays in- 
doors when the others are out, and 
then, next day, the very girls who 
laugh at her for being a "grind" will 
calmly borrow what she ground out 
while they were cheering the basket- 
ball team. It doesn't seem fair. 

Mrs. Kendall was very much dis- 
turbed the other day, because a 
friend of Gladys' wrote to invite 
herself to stay with them over the 




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L^sfc^^. 




ii2 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



Fourth. Some young man had asked 
her for the boating carnival, and she 
couldn't come down from her own 
home and get back on the same day, 
but if she could spend the night 
before and the night after with the 
Kendalls it would work out all right. 
Mrs. Kendall was going to have a 
houseful of relatives just then, any- 
way, and didn't see how she could 
squeeze in another person; and she 
didn't know the man at all, and 
didn't fancy what she heard of him, 
and would have been as well pleased 
not to have Gladys make his ac- 
quaintance. But she couldn't very 
well refuse. 

It ought to be a rule, with all nice 
girls, never to ask for anything which 
couldn't very well be refused. It is 
very commonly done, and nice girls 
do it. But they ought not. 

"Do you mind telling me?" says 
the nice girl, and asks an inquisitive 
question, and learns something her 
friend would have preferred to keep 
from her. 



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IMPOSING ON OTHERS 

"Do you mind if I go too?" she 
says, and makes a third in a walk 
that had been planned for two. 

"Do you mind introducing me?" 
she begs, and the prejudice which her 
friend happened to know the new 
girl had against her is doubled. 
Most of the questions that must 
begin with "Do you mind?" would 
be better omitted. 

Some girls accept kindnesses, with- 
out making any effort to refuse or 
return them, as if they conferred 
a favor by allowing others to wait 
on them, as a princess might. Our 
dear Mary Day has that habit. I 
suspect it is a habit to which sweet, 
tactful girls are rather liable. 

Mary has such a pretty way of 
thanking you, if you offer to mend 
her glove or press out her lingerie 
waist or carry her letter to the box 
or do up her laundry bundle or pack 
her suit-case, that for the first half 
dozen times you almost feel that for 
you to toil and for her to smile is 
just the proper division of labor. 






: 






ii4 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 






But if you spend two weeks with her, 
as Dorothy has just done, it begins 
to palL A number of the girls had 
taken a cottage on a campground, 
and the work was divided up among 
them. But Mary was always drop- 
ping out of the schedule — her head 
ached, or the long walk in the heat 
had made her feel faint, or some- 
thing. At first the girls were very 
sympathetic, and settled her in the 
hammock with the complete quota 
of pillows — Dorothy said Mary 
never put up that hammock once 
herself, in the whole fortnight — and 
hung over her with violet water and 
lavender salts. But towards the 
last they began to feel as if she really 
might have taken her share with the 
rest. 

Some girls expect altogether too 
much money to be spent on them — 
like princesses again, looking for their 
tribute. If they are visiting, they 
not only accept the car-fares for the 
trips which their friends propose, — 
which is all right, of course, — but 



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they have little excursions of their 
own to suggest, and leave those to 
be paid for in the same way. And 
often a guest's preference may in- 
crease or diminish quite perceptibly 
the cost of an excursion that is 
planned. Some girls are always 
pleased with the idea of carrying a 
luncheon from home, for example; 
others always incline to a restaurant 
if there is a chance. 

And at a restaurant, some girls 
make a moderate meal, as they would 
at home, and others seem bent on 
eating straight through the menu. 
When it is the father of the family 
who is taking his daughter's friend 
about, it doesn't matter so much, 
perhaps, though even fathers have 
times when dimes as well as dollars 
count. But when it is a brother 
who is trying to play the courteous 
host for his sister's sake, it makes a 
good deal of difference. 

The father of a bright young fel- 
low who is paying part of his way 
through college, tells me that his 



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u6 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

boy has about given up inviting girls 
to receptions, and even to games, 
because it costs so much. They 
expect so many extras, he says — 
flowers, and often a carriage, and 
a man doesn't like to seem mean, 
and he'd rather keep out of the whole 
thing. So some girls, I suspect, are 
losing some very good times. His- 
tory repeats itself, doesn't it, if we 
may compare small things with 
great? Grasping princesses, — in- 
tolerable exactions — revolution ! 











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XI 
LETTER-WRITING 













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LETTER-WRITING 

1 HOPE you will not answer this 
very soon, for I shall not want to 
write another letter right off." 

So ended a prim little note sent 
to me when I was a child by a cousin 
a year or two younger. Minnie was 
spending a winter with our grand- 
mother, and was being taught to 
perform her duties promptly. I un- 
derstood exactly how she felt, and 
should not have seen anything droll 
in her candor if my father and mother 
had not laughed when the letter was 
shown to them. But I have often 
thought of it since. 

"Duty-letters" — how the girls do 
hate to write them ! Not only small 
girls like Minnie, for whom it is a 






\m 






perilous feat to guide a pen full of 
ink across the slippery page, but my 
own Priscilla, and most of her friends. 
Priscilla is particularly puzzling, for 
she enjoys writing and is capable of 
a really delightful letter if the mood 
seizes her. But the consciousness 
that she " ought' ' to write seems to 
benumb all her faculties. It is partly, 
I suspect, because she has the habit 
of procrastinating, and then must 
begin with apologies — an apology 
never makes a first-rate spring- 
board to start from. "Prod Pris- 
cilla promptly and p'remptorily," 
Rob says, is Mother's motto. 

A "duty-letter," like a "duty- 
call," is harder the longer you put 
it off. On the other hand, if you 
attend to it at the proper time, it is 
easier in at least two ways — you 
are in a better mood for writing, 
and a shorter letter will do. Prompt- 
ness will save you as much as two or 
three sentences, I should say, if you 
will be so stingy with your words! 

Of all the letters that girls hate to 




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LETTER-WRITING 



121 



write — and grown people, too — I 
suppose letters of sympathy come 
hardest. And yet I am sure there 
are none that do more good. If we 
could only get rid of the feeling that 
they ought to be written in some 
very special style, — like a sermon, 
perhaps — and could just tell our 
friend in the simplest possible way 
how sorry we are that trouble has 
come to her, we should not shrink 
from the effort as we do. It is that 
miserable shyness that comes from 
thinking of ourselves, and of the 
appearance we are making, that 
embarrasses us here as at so many 
other times. 

"I don't know what to say" — 
that is the common complaint as we 
sit, paper before us, trying to begin. 
But the very fact that we cared 
enough to write will be a comfort, 
in itself. Again and again those who 
have had heavy sorrow testify that 
it is. Years after, they recall such 
letters and speak of them. If one 
wrote no more than the simple 



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sentence — "I do not know how to 
tell you how sorry I am" — it would 
be worth while. But if there is more 
that it seems natural to say, do not 
withhold it for fear it may not be 
suitable. 

Frances Goodwin told us that 
when her sister Lucy died the greatest 
comforts they had were the letters 
from her college friends. And one 
of them, Frances said, wrote how 
much Lucy used to talk about her 
home, and how she was always 
looking forward to going home in 
vacations, and always spoke as if 
everything was so ideal there. 
Frances said she and her father 
could never be grateful enough to 
the girl who wrote that — it did her 
mother more good than anything 
else — she kept reading it over and 
over. 

About all kinds of letters, that is 
the first rule, I believe — try to 
think what you would like to hear, 
if you were in your friend's place. 
If you were sick, you would want to 





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LETTER-WRITING 



123 



know what all the girls were doing. 
And you would specially like to hear 
how much they missed you, and what 
sympathetic things had been said. 
Details are best. " We all miss you " 
is pleasant, but "Molly said the 
picnic wouldn't be any fun without 
you" is much pleasanter. And if 
it happened that anything apprecia- 
tive, any word of praise had been 
said, wouldn't that be the very best 
part of the letter, if your friend 
remembered to put it in? "Pass 
along praise" — I should like to 
start a society with that motto. 
A real toothsome compliment, any 
nurse can tell you, will often do a 
patient more good than her dinner. 
Letters of congratulation ought 
to be fun to write, and I wonder we 
don't all write them oftener. They 
give us a chance to strike out in our 
own line, and do something that 
wasn't expected of us, which is always 
exciting. Priscilla was perfectly 
amazed to find how pleased Mildred 
Gates was with the note she wrote 




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her, after the Glee Club concert, 
telling her how much she enjoyed 
her solo. But little things like that 
do give a "finishing touch " to one's 
satisfaction. 

"Un-birthday presents" — pres- 
ents between times, when one is not 
looking for them — seem to be a new 
fad, and a very pleasant one. Letters 
like Priscilla's to Mildred are in that 
line. A letter to a teacher, thank- 
ing her for her interest and help, 
would be very cheering; I don't 
believe half the gratitude the boys 
and girls really feel ever gets itself 
expressed. Of course these "un- 
birthday" letters can always be 
both hearty and sincere, for nobody 
need send them unless she wants to. 
But if one will be on the lookout for 
chances, one will find a great many. 

I had a letter, this spring, that 
really delighted me. It was from a 
young girl to whom I had sent a 
present two or three years ago, and 
she had written at the time to thank 
me. But she enjoyed it even more 




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LETTER-WRITING 




than she expected, and she wrote 
again, and thanked me a second 
time, all out of a clear sky. 

But none of us would want to give 
up our regular birthday presents on 
the chance of getting "un-birthday" 
ones. And I think we'd all better 
keep up with our regular letters first 
— our old duty-letters — and then 
branch off into these spontaneous 
ones afterward, if we have more 
time. 

Letters of thanks ought not to be 
hard to write. But some girls grum- 
ble over them so, one feels as if they 
didn't deserve any invitations, or 
gifts, or kindnesses of any sort. Their 
letters, when they get them done, 
are so short and stiff — they might 
have been turned out by the dozen, 
all just alike. 

I sent the same present, last 
Christmas, to two of my nieces. 
One wrote: 

Dear Aunty: — Do forgive me for not 
thanking you before for that charming 
book. It was so kind of you to remember 



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126 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

me. We have had a lot of people here, 
and a lot doing. I have quantities of notes 
to write, and must make them all short. 
Love to all. 

Devotedly, 

Winifred. 
The other wrote : 

Aunty dear: — How did you know a 
volume of Kipling would be the very nicest 
thing you could possibly send me for Christ- 
mas? Was it because you remembered 
how much I enjoyed hearing Uncle Robert 
read him aloud, last summer? But any- 
body would enjoy hearing Uncle Robert 
read anything, you know, so that wasn't 
proof! But you guessed right, however 
you did it, even to the color of the binding. 
I have been wanting more red in my book- 
case. And red is the color for Kipling, 
anyway, isn't it? I shall bring it, next 
time I come, and then Pris and I can read 
together, turn and turn about, as we did 
with "The Vision of Sir Launfal." Give 
her a lot of love from me, and the same to 
Rob — ij I may take the liberty! — and 
always a lot, you know, to yourself and 
Uncle-dear, and many thanks, from 

Kitty. 

Kitty's English teacher would 
blue-pencil her italics, I suppose, 








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LETTER-WRITING 



127 



but I don't mind a little over- 
emphasis, when it's in the way of 
affection. Kitty means all she says. 
And her letter, you see, has the real 
personal sound. It couldn't have 
been written about any other pres- 
ent — fancy Win's calling "The 
Seven Seas," charming! — or to any 
other person. And it showed she 
had been thinking about me, and 
my home, putting herself in my place, 
as we said before. It is those per- 
sonal touches that make a letter 
really grateful to the heart. With- 
out them, no matter how pains- 
taking and clever and full of news 
and comment it may be, it turns 
into an essay or a chronicle, and 
misses all the cheering, gladdening 
possibilities of the true letter. 



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XII 
THE ART OF LIKING PEOPLE 



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IT certainly is an art, and it cer- 
tainly can be cultivated. Of course 
some fortunate people have a natural 
gift for it, as they might have for 
music or painting. But most of 
us need to take pains, and practise. 
My niece Alice can never realize 
that. Alice is a bright girl, fairly 
pretty, with good manners. Her 
father and mother are cordial, hos- 
pitable people. There is nothing in 
her circumstances to prevent her 
making friends. But she has so 
few that she is really unhappy about 
it. Of course, she knows plenty of 
girls, and walks back and forth to 
school with them, and isn't left out 
of the parties and picnics that they 



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132 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

plan. But she says she doesn't feel 
as if any of them really cared about 
her. And, to tell the candid truth, 
I don't think they do. 

There isn't any reason why they 
should, you see. Alice doesn't care 
about any of them. She thinks she 
wants friends, and she feels lonely 
without friends, but when you come 
to talk to her of this girl and the 
other, she doesn't want them for 
friends — she doesn't find them 
"congenial." 

My father taught us to hate that 
word "congenial." I hate it still. 
It may have been a good word once, 
but it got into bad company long, 
long ago. I never hear Alice use 
it without thinking how supercili- 
ous it sounds. She doesn't say that 
it is because she is so superior that 
she finds the rest so "uncongenial," 
but that is what she means. And 
really, in spite of the loneliness which 
she regrets, one can detect a certain 
pride in it — the pride of a Solitary- 
Soul. 






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ART OF LIKING PEOPLE 133 

Now to be a Solitary Soul is not 
so fine as Alice thinks. It is fine, of 
course, to be the first at the top of 
the climb, even if you must wait by 
yourself till the others come up. 
But to be alone at the bottom, be- 
cause all the others have started 
on — there's nothing fine about that. 
No "solitary grandeur" there, just 
plain, literal "getting left." 

Alice hasn't the slightest idea that 
she is at the bottom, or anywhere 
near it. In her very humblest 
moods, I think she feels at least 
three-quarters up. She is a fastidi- 
ous girl, and avoids many of the 
common, obvious faults without 
effort. But one of the most serious 
faults of all she has — she always 
sees the worst in people. So she 
is always failing to get into sympa- 
thy with them, and losing chances 
to work with them and get and give 
the mutual help that comes from 
common effort. She will grow to be 
a very narrow person, I am afraid, 
in spite of her advantages. 



i 3 4 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

"But one can't like everybody," 
Alice always protests. No, not 
everybody. But the more the bet- 
ter. Liking, not disliking, is the 
ideal. We want to reach out, not 
draw in. I had a teacher once who 
could enjoy only four of our English 
poets — Spenser, Shakespeare, Mil- 
ton and Wordsworth, I believe they 
were. He was a brilliant man, and 
could give admirable reasons for 
finding all the others wanting, but 
I shall always think he might have 
had more pleasure himself, and 
done us just as much good, if he 
could have extended his range a 
little. 

We should pity the person who 
could not enjoy any flowers but 
orchids. Even if she added lilies 
and roses to her list, we should still 
be sorry she was losing all the pleas- 
ure the rest of us take in pansies and 
lilacs and daffodils and nasturtiums 
and golden-rod and buttercups. The 
girl who can like only two or three 
kinds of people is far more to be 



m 



ART OF LIKING PEOPLE 135 



pitied. She is losing, not only pleas- 
ure, but the chance for service. Even 
flowers are said to grow better for 
those who love them. People cer- 
tainly do. 

I once met a charming woman who 
had been a missionary in India for 
years — missionaries are almost al- 
ways charming people, if you notice 
— and I asked her a question that 
had often been in my mind. Did 
she find it possible really to love 
those strange women, with habits 
and ways of thinking so totally dif- 
ferent from her own, or did she 
work from a sense of duty? She 
startled me by the promptness of 
her answer: "How could I help 
them if I didnt love them?" 

She stated her belief a little too 
strongly, I think. We can begin 
to help people even if we do not love 
them, and by helping we may learn 
loving. But if the power to love 
doesn't come, the power to help 
will not last long. "The gift with- 
out the giver is bare. 






ft 




i 3 6 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 




Critical people seem to carry an 
oppressive, discouraging atmosphere 
with them — a real dog-day air. I 
have an old school friend who visits 
me sometimes. She is sincerely fond 
of me, I am sure, and she means to 
think as well as possible of my house- 
hold. But she has had the habit, 
all her life, of noticing little things 
that went wrong, and it seems as 
if everything went wrong, out of 
sheer perversity, every time she came. 
Her presence makes a constraint 
that even I feel. Our meals are 
ordeals. Rob is sure to drop some- 
thing, and Priscilla — usually a 
model of tact — makes some dread- 
ful " break' ' when she is trying to 
help along the dragging conversa- 
tion. As for me, I see every spot 
on the tablecloth double, with my 
own eyes and with Caroline's. Caro- 
line goes, and we are all light-hearted 
and merry again, and the cloth looks 
fairly clean. 

Then I have another friend — one 
of the most gifted women I have 




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ART OF LIKING PEOPLE 137 



ever known, a woman who has 
travelled, and seen the very best 
of life, and won reputation, and 
earned the right, if any one could, 
to be fastidious and fussy. She 
comes, and the maid waits on the 
table with unusual deftness, and 
Rob and Pris surprise even their 
doting mother by their charming 
manners and amusing chat, and the 
whole cocoa-pot may upset itself if 
it pleases and no one gives it a second 
thought. It is the difference be- 
tween a bright, clear, bracing day 
and a sultry one. And the differ- 
ence in the two women is just in their 
power of sympathy and adaptation. 
Evelyn always looks for the best in 
everyone — it is second nature to 
her, by this time — and she always 
finds it. 

Evelyn was one of the most popu- 
lar girls that ever graduated from 
our college, and I am not claiming 
that we could all be like her. A fine 
mind reenforces the impulses of her 
warm heart, and the result is tact 












i 3 8 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 




of a quality that one seldom finds. 
But I know the source from which 
her generous sympathy springs, and 
that we may all share. It is the 
faith that we are all alike children 
of God, on equal footing before Him, 
all brothers and sisters in the care 
of a loving, impartial Father. 

Now we all believe that. But 
how many of us behave as if we did? 
How many of us actually realize 
what it means? You are clever and 
ambitious, and to your friends, as 
well as to yourself, you seem a very 
important young person. But that 
cheap girl who was flunked on her 
finals, last June, is as important, to 
God, as you. 

You are proud of your capable 
father and mother, and of the farm 
which has been in your family from 
pioneering days. But that little 
Armenian girl who brings laces to 
the door, that Chinese boy who 
comes with the laundry bundle — 
they are as important, to God, as 
you. 



P 








ART OF LIKING PEOPLE 139 

That old friend who has become 
estranged from you, who did you 
that injury that you cannot forget 
— she is just as important to God 
as you, and if His providence ever 
intervenes to set matters right be- 
tween you, it will be just as much 
for her sake as for yours. 

Does that seem hard to realize? 
Then there is all the more need to 
make the effort. Try using the 
formula for awhile. When anyone 
seems to you contemptible or insig- 
nificant or uninteresting, when you 
have a grudge against anyone, try 
saying over to yourself: "She is as 
important, to God, as I." 







$&-9^* r; 



XIII 
CHURCH MANNERS 






® 



CHURCH MANNERS 

.BROTHERS, you may have 
noticed, are pretty severe critics 
of their sisters, and our Rob is not 
pleased with Priscilla's manners at 
church. Priscilla is a demure little 
mouse, and not even a carping 
brother could complain of the way 
in which she walks up the aisle and 
takes her seat. What Rob would 
do I shudder to imagine, if he had 
a sister who came striding in at her 
fastest week-day gait, swinging her 
arms, like Gladys Kendall, or spent 
the first ten minutes patting her 
hair and settling her hat and smooth- 
ing her gloves as Mabel Newcomb 
used to. 

But Priscilla, it must be confessed, 




m 




GIRL 



whispers. She whispers in the softest 
of little voices, and she feels as if no 
one could possibly be disturbed, and 
it is a great temptation, for she is 
always seeing people that she knows 
and I don't, and wanting to point 
them out to me. And of course she 
never whispers during the prayers, 
and seldom during the sermon, and 
not very often during the singing — 
mostly before the service is fairly 
begun. But Rob is firm in his con- 
demnation. No whispering at all, 
from the very beginning to the 
very end, is the rule he lays down. 
Otherwise, he thinks a girl might 
be thought "cheap," perhaps even 
"tough." 

Priscilla waxes indignant at his 
setting up for a censor. "Why, 
Mother," she says, "it doesn't seem 
any time since I used to have to 
draw pictures all through the ser- 
mon, to keep that wriggling young- 
ster still!" But she has to admit 
the force of his criticisms. Gradu- 
ally she is improving. 










n 





CHURCH MANNERS 



145 






Different churches have different 
standards of decorum. In some it is 
not thought suitable to notice one's 
friends, by bows or even smiles, after 
one enters. Even friendly greetings 
at the end of service are postponed 
till the outside of the church is 
reached. Decorum of that sort ac- 
cords with the idea of the church as 
a place for worship only — the 
"cathedral idea," as it is some- 
times called. On the other hand, 
with the idea that the church is a 
place where we meet to strengthen 
our sense not only of the Father- 
hood of God, but of the Brother- 
hood of Man, belongs the freer, 
easier style of manners. 

There is a great deal to be said for 
both views, and it is all very inter- 
esting, and leads one back into 
hundreds of years of history, and 
sometime I hope Priscilla and Rob 
will study into it for themselves, for 
it is going to be a new question as 
well as an old one. Meanwhile, 
if they follow the standard of the 









146 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

church they happen to be in, no 
one will find any fault with them. 

Away from home, when one does 
not know what the habits of the 
place are, the strict rules are always 
the safe ones to follow. Careless- 
ness at church gives more offence 
than carelessness anywhere else. But 
as to whispering, there is no differ- 
ence of opinion. Pris will have to 
leave that off, wherever she is. 

It isn't only that it seems disor- 
derly, and disrespectful, and ill-bred, 
and irreverent. It does disturb 
others, even when the whisper is 
as gentle as Priscilla's. There are 
more deaf people than one might 
think in every audience, or people 
partly deaf. None of us had ever 
noticed that old Mr. Gates was los- 
ing his hearing, but Mrs. Gates tells 
me they changed their seat because 
they were in a whispering neighbor- 
hood, and he kept missing words 
now and then, in spite of all his 
pains. 

Whisperers are seen as well as 






X3: 




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M 






CHURCH MANNERS 147 



heard, and they distract attention 
quite as much that way. The John- 
sons exchange a good many com- 
ments back and forth, two rows in 
front of us, and I often catch Pris- 
cilla's glance following theirs and 
know perfectly well that she is try- 
ing to puzzle out what interests them. 
Even Rob, the righteous, sometimes 
forgets himself, and enquires at din- 
ner whether anybody knows what 
there was up in the gallery, at the 
left-hand end, that set those fresh 
Johnson girls going so. 

Now preaching against such dis- 
tractions is hard work, and any 
preacher will tell you so, if he is 
not too courteous to be perfectly 
frank. It may be you are one of 
the very persons that your pastor 
had in mind when he planned his 
sermon, and there may be one special 
truth in it that he hoped would help 
and encourage you. He has thought 
about it all the week, and tried to 
put it in the clearest possible form, 
and illustrated it in a way that he 






; 






148 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

hoped might catch your attention, 
and has prayed that he might speak 
in the right spirit — and when he 
gets to that passage you are not 
thinking about the sermon at all, 
but are studying the way the inser- 
tion is set into the dress in front of 
you. 

Don't imagine he doesn't notice. 
He does. Probably he reflects that 
one must make allowance for young 
people, and does not let himself be 
too much disheartened. But it has 
been a disheartening little incident. 
And you have been, for that service, 
not a help to your pastor, but a 
hindrance. 

You might have been a great help. 
If you had followed the sermon with 
an alert, intelligent attention the 
preacher would have felt a difference. 
If you had joined promptly and 
heartily in the responsive reading 
and the singing, the people sitting 
near you would have felt a difference, 
and some of them would have been 
impelled to join with more heart. 



MANNERS 



n 






If you would come to church, Sun- 
day by Sunday, with the same eager 
purpose to cheer and encourage and 
help along that you take to see your 
basket-ball team play a match game, 
you alone could accomplish more 
than you dream of. Try it. 

There is some one at the other 
end of the church who needs more 
help and less hindrance — the sex- 
ton. I think he has a pretty stiff 
job. The older people want him 
to keep things scrupulously heat and 
treat the carpets and upholstery as 
tenderly as possible, and turn out 
the gas promptly, and do everything 
he can to save expense. But the 
young people don't feel much anxiety 
about the church finances, and to 
them the sexton's little precautions 
seem fussy, and they set him down 
as disobliging. 

The new rug in our Ladies' Parlor 
has been the cause of endless dis- 
putes between our sexton and Young 
People's Society. It is a nice rug, 
and the ladies worked hard to get 







afclUJ^b^j 

















WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

it, and one of the rules is that refresh- 
ments shall not be served with it 
down. Socials must be held in the 
Bible-Class Room, or the rug must 
be taken up. That seems simple 
enough, and none of us can see why- 
it should irritate the Society so, es- 
pecially as most of the members are 
our own boys and girls, and have 
heard the whole situation explained 
over and over again. 

But the sexton complains that 
refreshments are constantly edged 
in, "informally," at the end of meet- 
ings which had been allowed in the 
parlor on the understanding that 
they were "just missionary meet- 
ings/ 9 and that he finds crumbs on 
the rug, and grease-spots. Or, if it 
is agreed that there are to be refresh- 
ments, no one remembers to have 
some of the boys come to roll up the 
rug, and the girls find it too heavy 
for them to manage and send over 
to his house for him, and sometimes 
grumble, audibly, at him for not 
having got it up himself beforehand. 










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CHURCH MANNERS 151 

It was after one of those meetings, 
I suppose, that Sally Curtis came 
home in a rage and told her mother 
that "old Jordan" was "a perfect 
crank." No, I believe the special 
grievance that night was that he 
asked them if they were ready to 
go home, and turned out the lights 
before they were fairly out of the 
door — there are so many of these 
little episodes, one gets them con- 
fused! 

There is a whole line of debata- 
ble things — all of them small, but 
making a total that ought not to be 
added to a busy man's work unless 
something is added to his pay. 
The Flower-Committee, for instance, 
counts its duties ended when the 
flowers are put in place, and goes 
away serenely unconscious of the 
stems and leaves left on the table 
in the tidy kitchen. The Music- 
Committee enlists four sturdy youths 
to roll the big piano in from the Sun- 
day-school room for the Endeavor 
meeting, but forgets to have them 




152 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 




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roll it back, and Mr. Jordan, who is 
an elderly man, must cope with the 
situation as best he can. 

'Charity begins at home. ,, Fair 
Play for the sexton ! 






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XIV 
FRIENDSHIP 






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XIV 





FRIENDSHIP 

A CALLER came the other day — 
a woman whose charm I always feel, 
and yet who always leaves me un- 
satisfied. She lacks a certain trait 
— or at least I am afraid she does, 
which comes to about the same thing, 
in this case. 

Sitting on the piazza, that evening, 
talking over the day, I said to my 
husband, "What trait of character 
do you value most? What seems 
to you of the very first importance, 
something absolutely indispensable, 
something that you must have in a 
friend?" 

He answered promptly, as I might 
have known he would, "Unselfish- 
ness." 







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156 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

Rob said "Generosity," which was 
about the same thing, of course. 

Priscilla voted for Tact and Sym- 
pathy, dear child. 

We put the question to the Dress- 
maker, as she came downstairs with 
her bulging bag. Her choice was a 
double one, too — "Generosity and 
Refinement," an odd combination. 

Mrs. Kendall came over with a 
dish of late raspberries from her 
garden. We all fell to on them at 
once, and gave her our conundrum 
in exchange. Her answer was " Kind- 
ness." 

None of them had guessed mine. 

"Don't any of you care about 
Sincerity?" I said. 

They all exclaimed! They had 
all taken that for granted, as some- 
thing fundamental, something that 
didn't even need mentioning, as 
much a matter of course as keeping 
your hands clean! (Rob scowled at 
the illustration.) 

To character and to friendship, 
we all agreed, sincerity is the first 















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FRIENDSHIP 



essential. We all know flourishing 
friendships that have died down for 
want of it. 

About Mary Day, fond as we all 
are of her, there is always that little 
uncomfortable feeling that you can't 
be quite sure she means what she 
says, or cares as much for you as she 
would have you believe. One doesn't 
expect to be first with all one's 
friends, but whatever place one does 
hold, one likes to feel secure in. A 
twenty-five cent handkerchief for 
my birthday may please me as much 
as a fifty-cent one, but I don't like 
to find a fifty-cent label pinned to 
it, nor to suspect that it has been 
sent to me in a box from a better 
store than the one where it was 
actually bought. False pretenses, 
of all sorts, no matter how trifling, 
make one doubt the whole character. 

There is a homely old proverb 
which says: "A dog that will fetch a 
bone will carry one." I wonder how 
old it is — it must date back to a 
time when people were more careful 



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WHILE YOU ARE 



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of the distinctions between "fetch/* 
"carry/' "bring" and "take" than 
they are now. But it points an 
up-to-date moral. When Mary, in 
her sweet, soft voice, confides to our 
Dorothy that she would rather go 
home with her from the house-party 
than with anyone else, but she feels 
she ought to go with Sylvia because 
Sylvia is so easily hurt and Dorothy 
is always so sensible and will under- 
stand — how can Dorothy help real- 
izing that Sylvia would be bitterly 
hurt if she knew her promised guest 
was talking of her so, and how can 
she help suspecting that, to Sylvia, 
Mary might say something equally 
unpleasant for her to hear? 

"Never say behind the back what 
you would not say to the face" is a 
good rule to follow, for friends. It 
would be a good rule for everybody 
to follow, but that is almost too much 
to expect, and it is a silly person who 
takes offense because she happens 
to hear of a criticism on her dress 
or manners that some ordinary ac- 







i 




FRIENDSHIP 



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1 






quaintance has made. We are say- 
ing such things constantly, most of 
us, and no one is much to blame 
except the people who report the 
light, casual talk to those who were 
never meant to hear it — they must 
be extraordinarily careless or spite- 
ful, I admit. 

But with our friends the case is 
altogether different. We expect our 
friends to feel toward us as our 
families do. They can't think we're 
perfect, of course. Sometimes it 
may even be their duty to tell us 
they don't. But before outsiders, 
we expect them to behave as if they 
did — to present a solid front, as 
loyal comrades should. 

It takes tact as well as courage to 
do this, sometimes. But it can be 
done. I heard Priscilla, in the ham- 
mock yesterday, say to Mildred 
Gates, "Don't you think that new 
hat of Sally Curtis's is awfully 
loud?" Mildred answered, with a 
deprecating little laugh, "Well, you 
know, I'm getting awfully fond of 






w 




\VA 



Sally/' That met the situation per- 
fectly. Priscilla understood at once, 
and promptly changed the subject. 

Tact is useful to friendship in 
all sorts of ways. The "kindness" 
that Mrs. Kendall prizes so — poor 
lady, she gets little enough of it from 
her heedless, headstrong Gladys — 
needs tact to make it acceptable. 
Many kind-hearted, obtuse people 
go blundering through life without 
the friendship they crave, for want 
of this very tact. "Sympathy" is 
closely related to it, and so is the 
"refinement" that the Dressmaker 
sets such store by. 

The Dressmaker is a practical 
woman, who has taken care of her- 
self since she was sixteen and met a 
good many hard knocks, and I was 
surprised at her valuing so highly a 
quality which many people think 
ornamental rather than useful. But 
she is quite in accord with that other 
student of human nature, George 
Eliot, who gives it as her opinion 
that "a difference of taste in jokes 



M 

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) 




is one of the severest tests of friend- 
ship. " Certainly we can judge of 
people's quality by the jokes they 
enjoy, and often do judge of it so, 
glancing at the pictures we see them 
chuckling over on the trains. So 
one can judge of quality by a laugh. 

Some subjects ought to be ruled 
out from jesting. Religion is one. 
I think love is another. All the 
little sly hints about "best girls" 
and "steadies" that many persons 
are so fond of making, are in poor 
taste, and a girl who disliked them 
could not long make a close friend 
of one who found them amusing. 

The Dressmaker says, too, that 
refinement is even more necessary 
to friendship when you work hard 
and have to scrimp than it might 
be if you were rich. In large houses, 
with ample space, people don't rub 
up against each other so closely. 
But in a crowded boarding-house, 
where perhaps you don't even have 
your room to yourself, if people are 
prying and indecorous, you feel it. 









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i6a WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 









1 



More friendships, she thinks, have 
perished because people couldn't keep 
out of each other's way and couldn't 
let each other's affairs alone than 
from all other causes put together. 
I shouldn't wonder if she was right. 
Girls, I know, sometimes come 
back from visits feeling that they 
have seen too much of each other, 
and learned too much of each other's 
concerns. Reserve and reticence are 
really essential to the finest friend- 
ship. In the first enthusiasm over 
a new friend, with the delight of 
finding one's self understood and 
sympathized with, girls often pour 
forth confidences that they regret 
afterwards. But if the listening 
friend has proper delicacy, she does 
not refer to the subject again, and 
the mortification gradually wears 
off, and the friendship is saved in 
spite of the indiscretion which had 
imperiled it. But if, on the other 
hand, your friend wakes in the morn- 
ing to put one question more to you 
on the topic which you went to sleep 







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FRIENDSHIP 

feeling you had talked about too 
much, you will probably detach 
yourself from her as fast as you can, 
and the whole episode will always 
be a disagreeable one to look back 
on. Robert Burns gives shrewd 
advice : 

"Aye free, aff han' your story tell, 
When wi' a bosom crony; 
But still keep something to yoursel 
Ye scarcely tell to ony." 



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GO 



THE GENEROUS HEART 

riOB would have most of the boys 
with him — and the girls too, I sus- 
pect, — in voting for generosity as 
a prime requisite in a friend. I 
should agree with them, if they 
would let me make the definition. 
To me, " generosity' ' means some- 
thing more than Rob means when 
he says he has "no use for a tight 
wad." 

Most boys and girls part with 
money pretty easily, not having 
learned yet how hard it is to get it, 
and it's no special credit to them to 
be generous in that way. Indeed, 
I have known "tight wads" who were 
the greatest possible comfort to hard- 
working fathers and mothers, and 




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1 68 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

who had more of the qualities that 
make firm, trusty friends than those 
who laughed at them. 

Priscilla, from her three years' 
superior knowledge of the world, 
understands me better than Rob 
when I say that to be generous- 
hearted is the great thing. Your 
real friend must be generous with 
her interest and appreciation, must 
be willing to throw herself into your 
concerns and to try to take your 
point of view. You remember that 
old definition of a bore — "A per- 
son who wants to talk about himself 
when you want to talk about your- 
self." We are all bores sometimes, 
and we need friends who can be 
patient with bores. 

It was because Mildred Gates 
had this generous-hearted patience 
that she got at the real Sally Curtis 
so much sooner than any of the 
other girls did. Sally is a lively, 
loquacious creature, inclined to talk 
a great deal about the fun they had 
in the place where she used to live, 




THE GENEROUS HEART 



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and most of the girls set her down, 
at once, as conceited, and took no 
pains to find out what else she might 
be. But Mildred is always a sym- 
pathetic listener, and it was no great 
hardship to her to let Sally chatter 
on, when they happened to walk to 
school together, and gradually she 
discovered that Sally was really much 
nicer than she seemed at first, an 
obliging, energetic girl, willing to 
put herself to endless trouble for 
her friends, and really to be just as 
enthusiastic about the new ones as 
the old, if only they would give her 
a chance. So, now, Mildred is slowly 
interpreting Sally to the rest, and 
before long she will be fairly popular. 
Nothing that Mildred could possibly 
have bought, with money, for Sally, 
would have been worth as much to 
her. 

Envy poisons too many friend- 
ships. Two girls seem the closest 
of friends as long as their circum- 
stances are fairly equal, but one 
grows more prosperous and can dress 









better and spend more freely in all 
sorts of little ways, and there begins 
to be coolness between them. Out- 
siders are apt to blame the richer 
girl. "She has grown snobbish," 
they say. No doubt that is true 
sometimes. But sometimes it is true 
that the poorer girl is envious and 
sensitive and suspicious, on the look- 
out for slights where none are meant, 
and almost impossible to get on 
with. 

My niece Kitty says that every 
summer, when they come back to 
the little village where they lived 
all the year round before her father 
went into business for himself, she 
has to go much more than half 
way — "Oh, three-quarters, at least, 
Aunty!" — with the other girls. 
They all seem to be expecting her 
to hold aloof, and are all on their 
guard to prevent her snubbing them, 
though she hasn't the slightest idea 
of it. It takes a month, every time, 
she says, to make them believe that 
she really is just the same girl, ex- 



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GENEROUS HEART 171 

cept, of course, the two or three 
with whom she has been keeping 
up a correspondence. 

But we know that friends do grow 
apart. We must accept that as one 
of the facts of life. It is not always 
a sad one. It does not always mean 
that there is blame on either side. 
All friendships are not made of the 
same stuff, and some have better 
wearing qualities than others. 

Two girls are constantly to- 
gether, and count themselves inti- 
mate friends, because they are both 
devoted to tennis. As they grow 
older, they develop quite different 
tastes, and prove to have less in 
common than they had supposed. 
They were not really friends — we 
overwork that word — they were 
just playmates, and neither of them 
need feel unhappy because the other 
has found a new playmate. 

Real friendship is based on quali- 
ties of character. You value truth 
and courage above everything else, 
and you believe your friend is the 









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172 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 

truest, bravest girl you know, or, 
at the very least, you believe she 
agrees with you in making truth and 
courage the ideals to strive for. To 
be disappointed in a friendship like 
that is a real blow — there's no 
denying it. But a friendship like 
that, if you are not disappointed in 
it, is one of the most precious gifts 
life can hold for you. It is worth 
making a great effort to keep. 

The generous spirit helps to keep 
friends as well as make them. A 
jealous, exacting temper is almost 
fatal to friendship. Priscilla was 
telling, the other day, a tale that 
sounded incredibly quaint and old- 
fashioned to me — I could have 
imagined such girls in the days of 
samplers and small waists, but I had 
no idea they had lingered on into 
the twentieth century — Priscilla 
was telling of a girl in her class who 
actually did not wish to have more 
than one friend, and of course could 
not allow her friend to have more 
than one. As you would expect, 





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MS^ 



THE GENEROUS HEART 




her friendships never lasted long — 
the situation was too tense. 

Few girls would go to such an 
extreme as that. But I suspect 
there are a good many girls who look 
on doubtfully when they see their 
friends beginning to make new friend- 
ships. The feeling is natural, I 
admit. And yet, we surely do not 
want to confess ourselves so narrow 
that we have room in our hearts for 
only one friendship. We need many, 
for our best development, and we 
shall not be as useful as we were 
meant to be, nor as happy, unless we 
have them. We cannot be so mean 
as to begrudge them to others. 

At our society breakfast, last Com- 
mencement, several of us fell to 
talking about Evelyn Cunningham. 
We always talk about Evelyn, when 
she is not there — it is next best to 
hearing her talk. We talked about 
her new book, and told each other 
the nice things the reviewers had 
said, and felt prouder of her than 
ever, if that were possible. Then 



'■■ 





E 



■i 



we talked about the hosts of friends 
she had in college days, and how she 
held them still — not one hurt or 
neglected, so far as any of us knew. 
Everywhere she goes, she makes new 
friends, but they never crowd out 
the old. More than one of us would 
name Evelyn first among our college 
friends, but not one of us would 
claim to be first with her. 

"Isn't it odd," said one of the 
girls, "that Evelyn has always been 
able to have so many friends with- 
out their ever being jealous of each 
other?" 

At first we agreed that it was odd, 
and then we laughed together at the 
oddness of the thought. We are 
all at our best with Evelyn, and 
pettiness and jealousy, if they ever 
trouble us, do not obtrude them- 
selves in our relations with her. I 
think we all feel that friendship like 
hers — wise, sincere, stanch and 
unselfish as human friendship can 
be — is too large a thing for jealousy. 

There it is, you see. To enjoy the 



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THE GENEROUS HEART 175 

large things of life in the largest way, 
we must be large-hearted ourselves. 
We sometimes think we don't get 
our deserts in this imperfect world. 
But in this matter of friendship, I 
incline to think we do — real, lasting 
friendship, I mean, not mere popu- 
larity. You long for the ideal friend? 
Deserve her, and I think you will 
find her. 

In that rare poem called "Wait- 
ing/' John Burroughs has expressed 
this conviction. 

"I stay my haste, I make delays, 

For what avails this eager pace? 
I stand amid the eternal ways, 

And what is mine shall know my face. 
Asleep, awake, by night or day, 

The friends I seek are seeking me, 
No wind can drive my bark astray 

Nor change the tide of destiny." 



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XVI 
ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 






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XVI 




ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 

1 HE enameled hat-pin that Sister 
Adelaide brought me from Paris has 
always been too long, and I have 
never dared to wear it. Priscilla 
came home once with an ugly scratch 
on her cheek, given her by a project- 
ing pin as its owner crowded by her 
onto a street-car, and that seemed 
to make the danger quite real to 
all of us. Hats didn't seem to be 
growing any larger, and I finally 
took the pin to be shortened. 

Yesterday I called for it. "How 
much will it be?" I said. 

"Five cents," said the Cheerful 
Jeweler. 

"Five cents!" I exclaimed. "I 
should think you'd had more than 




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>£\ 






five cents' worth of trouble with me 
calling twice." 

The Cheerful Jeweler laughed. 
"Well," he said, "if we charged 
what it's really worth to file them 
down, people would begin to say, 
'Why, I only gave a quarter for that 
hat-pin.' We have to do some jobs 
that don't pay us. It's all in the 
day's work." 

All in the day's work! There is a 
whole system of practical philosophy 
in the Cheerful Jeweler's phrase. 
It recalls the old proverbs, "No rose 
without a thorn," and "You must 
take the bitter with the sweet." It 
counsels us to accept life as it is, 
adjust ourselves to it, make the best 
of it, and do our part in it generously 
and bravely and happily. 

Annoyances will always be in the 
day's work. They come to those 
who carry great responsibilities as 
well as to us lesser folk. I remember 
distinctly the surprise we felt when 
we began to get Cousin Gertrude's 
letters from Turkey. We had 





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ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 181 

thought it a great sacrifice for her 
to decline the position that was 
offered her here, and go out there 
and leave all of us, but I think we 
had felt as if, in compensation, her 
life would be lived on a loftier plane, 
free from the petty annoyances the 
rest of us had to contend with. 

Behold, the very first thing, Ger- 
trude's baggage was delayed, and 
when she met all the new people in 
Constantinople, she had to do it in 
borrowed clothes! Gertrude is an 
out-size, and never could wear any- 
thing that belonged to anyone else 
— I can imagine how she must have 
looked. 

And the discomforts of the trip 
up the Black Sea! And across the 
mountains! Not picturesque perils, 
from brigands only — if you call 
those picturesque — but fleas, and 
prying people, and no place to un- 
dress. 

And when she finally got to her 
station, it wasn't just an earthquake, 
and done with it, but every kind of 







nagging, worrying little bother that 
the head of an American board- 
ing-school ever had — doors that 
wouldn't lock, and bad butter from 
the best grocer, and lazy servants, 
and girls that woke you up in the 
night because they "heard some- 
thing/' and visitors that turned up 
when you hadn't a spare bed to put 
them in. 

It was just as bad as home, with 
all the hardships of a foreign land 
and language thrown in. Gertrude 
wrote in her light, whimsical way 
about them all, and her letters taught 
a lesson in the family circle before 
they began to be borrowed for mis- 
sionary meetings. 

Interruptions will always be in 
the day's work. Priscilla says it 
seems as if she never settled down to 
get a lot done on her couch cushion 
that Rob didn't turn up, wanting 
to know whether she'd seen his 
tennis-ball or his running-shirt or 
his bird-book. Of course "Have 
you seen?" is just a wheedling way 



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ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 




of saying "Come help me look," and 
Priscilla sighs but comes. 

After all, it is these small kind- 
nesses that make the pleasant mem- 
ories. Priscilla's grandfather tells 
her that, in his boyhood, there was 
one of his sisters who had a special 
knack for finding things. (A very 
useful knack it must have been — 
prized by the parents, I should 
think, as much as by the other chil- 
dren. In our family, it never seems 
as if the children really expected to 
find things. They go, and look, and 
report their looking with a sense of 
duty done, and then some older 
person gets up, and does the finding.) 
In Grandfather's home, whatever 
was missing, the children always 
depended on Lydia to find it. And 
she never failed them. Usually, she 
had seen it, and remembered where. 
If not, she knew where it would 
be likely to be, and went there for 
it. So many times I have heard 
Grandfather say, "If my sister Lydia 
were here, she would find it." I 







think Great-aunt Lydia would be 
pleased, don't you, to have her 
sisterly helpfulness recalled so, after 
sixty years? 

To recover one's self quickly, after 
an interruption, and concentrate 
one's faculties again on the work 
in hand, is as important as to learn 
to take the interruption itself good- 
naturedly. Practical newspapermen 
say that beginners who come to them 
enthusiastically recommended by 
friends who are sure they can 
"write," fail at this very point. 
They have been in the habit of 
writing behind a locked door, with 
a doting mother, maybe, to see 
that no one so much as rattled the 
knob. They find it an entirely dif- 
ferent matter to write in the con- 
fusion of an office. 

Misunderstandings will always be 
in the day's work. People do not 
appreciate us as we think they ought. 
They take snap-shots of us and call 
them real pictures. 

You try to do a kindness, and you 



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ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 185 

are thought meddlesome. You pride 
yourself on looking nice at home, 
and the one day of all the summer 
that you go to the door untidy, your 
best friend has brought a strange 
girl to sit on your piazza. You 
oppose giving fifty cents apiece for 
the teacher's present, because you 
really think it is more than some of 
the class can afford, and the very 
girls you had in mind call you mean. 
You give up school and go to work, 
to make hard times easier for your 
father, and your favorite teacher 
regrets that you have so little per- 
sistence. 

To be sympathetically understood 
is a great luxury, and we ought not 
to expect to have it often, any more 
than any other luxury. Most of 
us have one or two people whom we 
can count on to appreciate us and 
stand by us, and those are plenty. 
For the rest, their trifling misinter- 
pretations of our conduct or motives 
ought not to give us much concern. 
To be constantly complaining that 



1 86 WHILE YOU ARE A GIRL 



1 



one is misunderstood makes one 
pitiable, sometimes even ridiculous. 

Failures will always be in the day's 
work. They are inevitable. Where 
so many of us are wanting the same 
thing, some of us are bound to be 
disappointed. 

When Dorothy graduated, she had 
high hopes, as graduates always do, 
about the position she could get. 
She haunted agencies, and answered 
advertisements, and kept doing up 
her best shirt-waist overnight on 
the chance of being telephoned to 
meet a school-superintendent in the 
morning. As the summer wore on, 
the salary she was willing to take 
grew smaller and smaller, till finally 
on the hottest of the hot days, she 
started for a bit of a village thirty 
miles back, where she had heard 
there was to be a vacancy. In the 
same car were seven other girls, all 
with an anxious air which Dorothy, 
by that time, had learned to recog- 
nize. They all went on, past station 
after station, and got out together, 



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ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK 187 

at the end of the line. And back 
they all came together, on the up- 
train, rivals no longer, but sharers 
in a common disappointment. By 
that time, they were able to make a 
joke of it together, and be quite 
merry. But it took courage to get 
up, next day, and begin again. 

Almost harder to bear are the 
failures that come directly by our 
own fault — stupid blunders that 
we knew better than to make, trifling 
mishaps that might have been pre- 
vented if we had kept our presence 
of mind, awkwardnesses that we can- 
not think of without blushing. But 
they are all in the day's work. 

In the queer old text-book on 
Mechanics that Rob laughed at so 
when he found it in my book-case, 
is a definition which means more to 
me now than it ever did in my high 
school days: "Work is the overcom- 
ing 0/ resistance." To overcome the 
resistance which all the petty annoy- 
ances and interruptions and mis- 
understandings and failures of the 






day make to our good temper and 
our faith, and to carry ourselves 
courageously and cheerfully and 
serenely through the varying days 
— is not that the real "work" of 
life? 



m 







OCT 2 1913 



NEVER FEAR TO BRING THE SUB- 

LIMEST MOTIVE TO THE SMALLEST 

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